Facebook has chosen NASDAQ over New York Stock Exchange for the company’s upcoming IPO in May, the New York Times reports, based on anonymous sources familiar with the matter who have not been authorized to discuss it.
It’s a big win for the exchange, which has been locked in a head to head competition with the New York Stock Exchange for tech company listings. LinkedIn and Pandora launched IPOs on the New York Stock Exchange last year, while NASDAQ launched the IPOs of Zynga and Groupon. This year, Yelp and Millennial Media chose the New York Stock Exchange, while Brightcove hit NASDAQ.
“It’s a high-profile win for their listings business,” said Michael Adams, an analyst Sandler O’Neill, told the New York Times. “In terms of earnings, the impact won’t be dramatic, but it’s something to be proud of.”
Boasting 800 million users and $3.7 billion in revenue, Facebook is the crown jewel of IPOs. Its IPO could value the company as high as $100 billion, the largest since Google’s ???? IPO in 2004. Based on an offering of at least $5 billion, Facebook could well be the largest IPO in NASDAQ’s history, according to data from S.& P. Capital IQ.
Earlier this week, the Federal Trade Commission approve the expedition of a filing for Facebook’s founder CEO Mark Zuckerberg.