Twitter officially announced that they would be filing for an IPO via a quick tweet. While this announcement wasn’t a surprise to many, it will surely have quite an impact on Twitter and many of the people and businesses who use the social giant. Unlike Facebook, Twitter filed for a confidential IPO, which means Twitter is able to go public, but not yet release the details of their finances. They will be releasing financial documents three weeks ahead of their attempt to secure financing from investors and bankers.
The official tweet from Twitter making this announcement said the following, “We’ve confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale.”
The confidential nature of the IPO is available only to companies which have less than $1 billion in revenue when they go public, which would include Twitter. At this point, there isn’t much news to report about IPO, other than that it will likely occur sometime in early 2014. According to Bloomberg News (who reported this via a tweet), Goldman Sachs will be the lead underwriter for the offering.
While Twitter and Facebook are very different companies, investors will undoubtedly have the Facebook IPO in mind while deciding whether or not to invest. Facebook stocks dropped significantly in the days and weeks after the IPO, causing many to speculate that the IPO was causing more harm than good. Of course, Facebook has since rebounded and is trading near all-time highs of $43.67 (as of this writing).
What, if anything, Twitter executives will learn from the Facebook IPO remains to be seen. Also, what types of impact going public will have on the way Twitter operates will also be something of intense speculation in the next few months.
What do you think about Twitter going public? Will it help the company? What about the users?
