Call us crazy, or perhaps realistic, but LinkedIn going public in 2011 seems like a bad idea. Nevertheless, that appears to be on the horizon according to a recent report from Reuters.
Citing sources familiar with the situation, LinkedIn, which is essentially a social network for employment and professional networking, has already selected its underwriters with Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and JPMorgan all rumored to be in the mix.
“An IPO is just one of many tactics that we could consider,” a spokesman for LinkedIn said on Wednesday. He declined further comment.
Internet companies such as LinkedIn and Zynga, a popular maker of online social games, are considering offerings well ahead of a potential IPO of Facebook, two sources said.
“Some of these companies want to go public because they want to beat Facebook and others out,” said one of the sources. “If Facebook went public before Linkedin, do you think anyone would pay that much attention to Linkedin?” You might want to surpass the beast.”
Well hopefully beating Facebook to the IPO punch isn’t a factor in LinkedIn’s decision. What’s next, revamped LinkedIn profiles? Hmm, on second thought, that might not be such a bad idea. Incidentally, LInkedIn has 85 million users in 200 countries. Facebook, meanwhile, champions well over 600 million users across the globe.
Tue, Jan 11, 2011
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