Facebook (FB) started trading publicly on the New York Stock Exchange around 11 AM this morning. The opening price, just decided last night, was $38 per share. (As you might have noticed in the year-long build-up to today, the powers that be seem to be incredibly cavalier about precision and timetables in the creation of billionaires.) Thus, Western Civilization advances again, even as its putative birthplace implodes. What’s a bigger deal: IPO, Facebook or Grexit, Greece?Some back-of-the-envelope calculations, based on today’s exchange rates:If everyone who could have exercised their stock options had done so, CNN projects there’d be 2.8 billion FB shares outstanding.Working backwards from their market cap numbers, it appears a more conservative estimate would be 2.1 billion outstanding shares by the end of trading today.
At the start price of $38/share, Facebook would have been valued at $81 billion.According to the CIA Factbook, the 2010 market value of all publicly traded shares in Greek companies: $72.65 billion.The amount of Facebook that was withdrawn, in euros, from Greek banks on May 14: 39.5 million launch shares (€1.2 billion).The amount of Facebook by which the Greek government’s expenses exceeded its revenues in 2011: 645 million launch shares (€19.565 billion).The amount of Facebook Greece has in its foreign reserves: 190 million launch shares ($7.224 billion).
If Facebook rises to $59.52/share, it would be worth everything Greece currently owes other eurozone central banks (€100 billion).If Facebook rises to $63.96/share, it would cover all Greek public expenses in a year (€107 billion).If Facebook rises to $127.97/share, it would be worth all the goods and services produced by Greece in 2011 (€215 billion, nominal GDP).If Facebook rises to $211.65/share, its market value would equal Greece’s current public debt (€355 billion).
Population of Greece: 11,305,118
Facebook active users: 901 million
Facebook users in Greece: 3,699,520Number of Facebook employees: 3500+
Number of Greek government employees: 705,645Average salary, software engineer at Facebook (Glassdoor, so take with grain of salt): $111,428
US average gross salary (2010): $47,390Average salary, pre-crisis railway employee in Greece (Daily Mail, so take with grain of salt): $94,926
Greece average gross salary (2005): $27,702 (€21,775)
Facebook revenue (2009, 2010, 2011): $777 million, $1.974 billion, $3.71 billion
Facebook profit (2009, 2010, 2011): $229 million, $606 million, $1.0 billionGreece GDP (2009, 2010, 2011): $347 billion, $326 billion, $304 billionPortion of Greek economy estimated to be black-market: 33%
Portion of FB voting shares controlled by Mark Zuckerberg: 57.3%So don’t despair, small investor bigfooted out of your God-given right to own Facebook at $38 per share. It could have been much worse. You could have invested in the nation-state.
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At the start price of $38/share, Facebook would have been valued at $81 billion.According to the CIA Factbook, the 2010 market value of all publicly traded shares in Greek companies: $72.65 billion.The amount of Facebook that was withdrawn, in euros, from Greek banks on May 14: 39.5 million launch shares (€1.2 billion).The amount of Facebook by which the Greek government’s expenses exceeded its revenues in 2011: 645 million launch shares (€19.565 billion).The amount of Facebook Greece has in its foreign reserves: 190 million launch shares ($7.224 billion).
If Facebook rises to $59.52/share, it would be worth everything Greece currently owes other eurozone central banks (€100 billion).If Facebook rises to $63.96/share, it would cover all Greek public expenses in a year (€107 billion).If Facebook rises to $127.97/share, it would be worth all the goods and services produced by Greece in 2011 (€215 billion, nominal GDP).If Facebook rises to $211.65/share, its market value would equal Greece’s current public debt (€355 billion).
Population of Greece: 11,305,118
Facebook active users: 901 million
Facebook users in Greece: 3,699,520
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Number of Greek government employees: 705,645Average salary, software engineer at Facebook (Glassdoor, so take with grain of salt): $111,428
US average gross salary (2010): $47,390Average salary, pre-crisis railway employee in Greece (Daily Mail, so take with grain of salt): $94,926
Greece average gross salary (2005): $27,702 (€21,775)
Facebook revenue (2009, 2010, 2011): $777 million, $1.974 billion, $3.71 billion
Facebook profit (2009, 2010, 2011): $229 million, $606 million, $1.0 billionGreece GDP (2009, 2010, 2011): $347 billion, $326 billion, $304 billionPortion of Greek economy estimated to be black-market: 33%
Portion of FB voting shares controlled by Mark Zuckerberg: 57.3%