Facebook, the world’s largest social-networking service, could file for its initial public offering as early as Wednesday this week. It’s a move that has been on the cards for some time, but the rumour pot is now starting to boil more consistently.

Two insiders, who asked not to be identified because the news isn’t public knowledge yet, and for other obvious reasons, said the company was discussing a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion, although Facebook would need to provide financial results to justify this.

The company had discussed raising $10 billion in the public offering according to another source that was familiar with the matter in November.

Adding further fuel to the rumour, current shareholders of Facebook endured a three-day suspension of trading on secondary markets that lasted through Friday last week.

Fenwick and West LLC, Facebook’s attorneys, weren’t processing shareholder transactions even though buy and sell orders could be still be made.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Morgan Stanley was likely to handle the deal, while Goldman Sachs would probably play a “major role” in the process.

Goldman played an integral role last year when it announced an investment from itself and other backers to the tune of $1,5 billion, valuing Facebook at $50 billion at the time.

Anupam Palit, an analyst at GreenCrest Capital Management LLC in New York, explained:

They [Facebook] might discount it a little bit in order to make sure the first couple days of trading are very strong.

Facebook currently generates the majority of its revenue through advertising, but a public listing would increase its financial strength to continue its domination over other social networks such as Google Plus and Twitter.

[Source: Bloomberg]