Yesterday the Wall Street Journal got a huge amount of attention for reporting that Facebook is preparing to go public next year in an IPO that could value the company in excess of $100 billion. It became the top story on HuffingtonPost, and got prominent links/rewrites everywhere from Reuters to Drudge.

Huh? I’ve read the WSJ story several times, and can’t find any information that hasn’t been previously reported. The only exception would be that Facebook may raise $10 billion via the offering, but that’s a working figure that Biz Insider’s Nicholas Carson suggested back in May. In fact, much of the existing info comes from earlier articles in the… wait for it… Wall Street Journal!

Here’s a quick selection, which took approximately 19 minutes of research to compile:

• January 3, 2011
  Associated Press: “Wedbush Morgan analyst Lou Kerner, who has been bullish on social media and Facebook in particular, says Facebook is well worth $50 billion… Kerner thinks the company could trade at $100 billion if it went public.”
• March 17, 2011
  WSJ Venture Dispatch blog: “Judging by all the price talk out there, its valuation could be above $75 billion, maybe even $100 billion, by 2012 when it expects to hold its IPO.”
• May 1, 2011
  WSJ: “Goldman’s and Digital Sky Technologies’ investment reported early this year was at a share price that implied a $50 billion valuation for Facebook. The people familiar with the company’s recent finances said they thought its profit was growing at a fast-enough clip to justify a valuation of $100 billion or more when it goes public.”
• May 17, 2011
  Agence France Presse: “Morningstar IPO analyst Bill Buhr agrees that market appetite for social-media stocks is understandable, but not necessarily justified. ‘If you consider Facebook, for instance they’re talking about a $100 billion valuation.’”
• May 25, 2011:
  Business Insider: “How big of a competitive advantage do Mark and Sheryl think it will be for Facebook to have $10 billion or so in cash available.”
• June 13, 2011
  CNBC: “Facebook, the social-networking site that is one of the most closely-watched private companies in the world, is likely to go public by the first quarter of 2012, say people familiar with the matter, at a valuation that could be pegged at north of $100 billion.”
• June 28, 2011
  WSJ Deal Journal blog: “Investment bankers have been knocking on Facebook Inc.’s Palo Alto doors for several months already, pitching their wares to the social networking company, ahead of an initial public offering. The event is expected to happen next spring at a possible valuation of $100 billion. Wall Street’s big banks all want a piece of it.”
• July 14, 2011
  WSJ: “Today, transactions of Facebook stock on private marketplaces value it at about $84 billion. Some people believe that if Facebook goes public next year, it will trade at a $100 billion valuation”
• September 14, 2011
  NY Times: “The company is still planning to go public in the first half of next year, people close to the matter said on Wednesday.”
• November 18, 2011
  Business Insider: “A source close to Facebook employees emailed us yesterday to say that the rumor flitting from employee to employee is that ‘a Facebook S-1 filing is coming really soon. Possibly as soon as next month.’”

Moreover, yesterday’s story is explicitly indefinite. It says that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg “hasn’t made any final decisions,” nor has Facebook formally selected bankers. So what is new here?

Look, I understand the business value of a big “Facebook IPO” headline. It drives pageviews and gets link love from those who weren’t previously paying attention (and, yes, I recognize the irony of this very post). But could we put a moratorium on these sorts of stories until Facebook actually takes a specific step toward listing? Or, at the very least, stop hyping those who rehash old information.

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Filed under: Term Sheet, Venture Capital Deals

Some private equity choices aren’t easy.

Earlier this year, we noted that Bain Capital was giving investors in its second Asia fund an unusual choice: Either pay a 1% management fee and 30% carried interest on your commitment, or a 2% fee and 20% carried interest.

Further complicating matters, the former comes with a 10% preferred return (i.e., hurdle rate that must be achieved before carried interest kicks in), while the latter has a 7% preferred return.

Bain’s one-and-thirty option seems to be what most limited partners claim they want, in that it presents fewer fixed costs and a greater alignment of interest between GP and LP. Two-and-twenty, however, is considered industry standard (albeit not for Bain, which is traditionally known for a 30% carry).

A source familiar with the process tells me that around $1.5 billion of the Asia fund’s $2 billion target is already spoken for, and that the participating LPs are almost evenly split as to which deal they’re taking. Within that group, funds-of-funds are the most likely to go with 1-and-30 while many of the traditional endowment and foundation managers are going with 2-and-20.

Will be interesting to see where it all plays out in the end, and if Bain will offer a similar choice when it begins raising its eleventh general fund next year.

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Filed under: Private Equity Deals, Term Sheet

One of venture capital’s most colorful limited partners gets a new gig.

Six months after stepping down as co-head of private equity investing for The Investment Fund for Foundations, Chris Douvos has a new job: Managing director with Venture Investment Associates, where he will help open a Silicon Valley office.

VIA is a New Jersey-based fund-of-funds manager that stays mostly under the radar, despite managing more than $1 billion in venture capital and private equity assets (including an initial fund that really was a transfer of interests from American Express). Douvos has known the firm founders – Stathis Andris and his son Jason — since his time at Princeton Investment Management Co., and tells me that he has considered  them to be “mentors.”

Expect Douvos to continue his emphasis on seed-stage and micro-VC fund managers, while also working on more traditional venture and private equity efforts. He will be joined in the Silicon Valley office by principal Jennifer Ayer, who previously was a marketing director for Samson Capital Advisors.

VIA has not yet signed an office lease in Silicon Valley, but expects to do so soon in Palo Alto.

Also good to hear that Douvos will continue writing his entertaining SuperLP blog – otherwise known as the only blog written by a LP about LP issues. A formal announcement about Douvos’ hire is on tap for later today.

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Filed under: Term Sheet, Venture Capital Deals

AT&T is in talks to sell some of its assets to Leap Wireless International Inc., in order to help salvage the proposed acquisition of T-Mobile, as first reported by the New York Times.

BHP Billiton said that it may sell some of all of  its diamond assets.

Nexen Inc. (NYSE: NXY), a Canadian oil and gas company, is planning to sell 40% of its northeast British Columbia assets for C$700 million to a group led by Inpex Corp. of Japan.

Nordic Capital has retained Carnegie and SEB Enskilda to advise on a possible sale of IPO of Nefab, a Swedish industrial packaging company that could be worth upwards of $460 million, according to Reuters.

Get yesterday’s M&A news 

Filed under: Term Sheet