Facebook is expected to file for an IPO later today – Wednesday morning stateside – raising $5 billion. This is a fair deal less than the $10 billion previously rumored. Folks figure Zuckerberg wants to start with a conservative base at first. Because he can’t be sure this “Face-book” thing is going to take off.

There are a couple of banks partnered in the IPO. Morgan Stanley will be taking the lead role, with Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and JP Morgan also involved in the deal, to a lesser extent. But honestly, they’re just happy to have some new money to play with.

The timeline on the proposal points to the IPO being finalized by May, pending SEC approval.

Facebook’s valuation is still up in the air, and it changes every time they introduce another rehash of their format, but traders on private exchanges are valuing the company at around $80 billion. So, a little over 620 billion ZAR.

Like.

[Source: IFR]