Facebook could go for $100 billion IPO?

Five years ago Mark Zuckerberg blew the business world’s collective mind by turning down an acquisition offer for $1 billion from Yahoo at the ripe young age of 22. Facebook’s explosive growth in popularity combined with Zuckerberg’s cavalier attitude and apparently unflinching dismissal of an offer that would have instantly made him a deca-millionaire many times over was instrumental in turning him from a young hotshot entrepreneur to a cultural icon.

Turning down a billion dollars at age 22 takes serious chutzpah. Almost everyone thought he was a little crazy. And yet now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Facebook is finally getting ready for its much-anticipated IPO sometime in the first half of next year, set to raise $10 billion in cash for the company at a valuation of $100 billion. As for Yahoo, Facebook has lapped its would-be acquirer. Its expected annual revenue of $4 billion is bigger than Yahoo’s. In fact, it’s Zuckerberg who could now make a move to acquire Yahoo, if his company saw any use for the aging web giant.

WSJ notes Zuckerberg’s share holding in the company is set to raise his personal wealth to $24 billion, which would make him the 14th richest person in the world according to the Forbes 400 list from 2011, and the 5th richest in the US, just behind the Walton family of Walmart’s fortune.

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