Signs suggest that Facebook is looking to have its initial public offering launch on on May 17th, assuming that the Securities & Exchange commission rubber-stamps all of the social network’s paperwork – including documents concerning Facebook’s recent billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram. Facebook is set to be initially valued at around $100 billion.

I mean a lot can happen in the four weeks between now and then – Europe’s economy might crawl under the house and die, North Korea could do something pointless, or there might be another oil crisis – but assuming things go the way they’re expected to go, the company ought to be raising around $10 billion from the initial offering, handing out a fraction of their 2,51 billion diluted shares at around $40 a share.

Major concerns for institutional investors – which will transpose onto public investors when they start existing – are mobile strategy issues and privacy issues. Facebook hasn’t done a thing about the latter, but they bought Instagram, which shut people up about the former.

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are both involved in underwriting the offering.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that on or around May 17th, people are going to make a metric tonne of money. Like this on Facebook.

[Source: TC]