It’s a good day to be LinkedIn. Yesterday, the company revealed that it would price its initial public offering at between $42 and $45 per share. Today, the IPO began trading at $83 per share, an 84 to 90 percent increase. So far, the stock price has risen to more than $92 per share, though the price is currently fluctuating between $85 and $90.
In total, LinkedIn is offering 7.84 million shares — one of the largest Internet IPOs since Google went public in 2004 — and is hoping to raise as much as $406 million. At $90 per share, LinkedIn would be valued at $8.5 billion. The IPO has so far raised the company more than $350 million.
Some believe the frenzy over LinkedIn is telltale of a new tech bubble. Last year, LinkedIn made only $15.4 million on sales of $243 million. But according to the company’s newly released first quarter earnings report, revenue is up 110 percent to $93.3 million. And net income increased to $2.08 million from $1.81 million in the first quarter of 2010 — a move in the right direction, at least.
LinkedIn has been gaining on new user roughly every second. The social network currently boasts more than 100 million users in total, many of whom live outside of the United States.
Along with Facebook, Twitter, Groupon and Zynga, LinkedIn is considered one of the “Big 5” tech companies, which helped its stock price pop to such a level. Currently, LinkedIn is the only one of the five companies to have launched its IPO. The other four are still privately owned, though it is rumored that Facebook plans to launch its own IPO sometime in the not-too-distant future. Given the enthusiasm surrounding LinkedIn’s offering, Facebook’s day may come sooner than previously imagined.
For those of you wanting to get in on the action, LinkedIn Corp. is listed as “LNKD” on the New York Stock Exchange.
