Everyone wants a piece of Facebook. After all, the sky seems to be the limit for the world’s largest social networking behemoth. The problem is that there is no IPO, at least not yet, and no indication about when an IPO will finally be released. But all that may soon change. Though Facebook may not have issued an official IPO yet, plenty of wealthy private investors are still buying into the company through four boutique companies in New York that specialize in privately owned shares.

These companies also sell shares to such up-and-coming giants like Zynga, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but Facebook seems to be where it is at. So many shares have been sold already that the company is currently valued at $56 billion. Accel Partners alone was able to sell less than 15 percent of its shares in the company for a whopping $517 million. Facebook may already have just under 500 hundred shareholders, which, according to the Securities & Exchange Act of 1934, would require them to disclose their financial results. Facebook has since been granted an exemption, but as the number of shareholders approaches 500, and with enough former employees eager (the only people who can sell their stock) eager to cash in, an IPO may be inevitable.
Read More at the Business Journal.
Read More at the New York Times.
Read More at Inside Facebook.