Facebook ups IPO price range

MUMBAI: Popular social networking site Facebook has hiked the price range for its initial public offering to $34-38 a share.

The company, which is expected to go public on 18 May, had earlier fixed its share price at $28-35.

At the current price range, the company could raise more than $12 billion and would have a valuation of $104 billion.

The social networking site will offer a total of 337.41 million shares as part of IPO offering.

Facebook has also extended the time frame for its $1 billion acquisition of mobile app maker Instagram.

The deal with Instagram would now be closed in 2012 instead of closing in the second quarter as it had previously indicated.

The company had in February filed for a $5 billion IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission in United States and will be listed on Nasdaq under the symbol ‘FB‘.

Launched in 2004, the social networking giant commands an active user base of over 800 million with revenues of $3.71 billion and a net profit of $1 billion last year.