Facebook files to go public, raise $5B

Facebook made a much-anticipated status update Wednesday: The Internet social network filed with regulators to go public, eight years after its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, started the service at Harvard University.

If its initial public offering of stock makes enough friends on Wall Street, Facebook will probably debut on the stock-market in three or four months as one of the world's most valuable companies.

Facebook, which is now based in Menlo Park, Calif., hopes to list its stock under the ticker symbol "FB" on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq Stock Market.

In its regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Facebook Inc. indicated it hopes to raise $5 billion in its IPO. That would be the most for an Internet IPO since Google Inc. and its early backers raised $1.9 billion in 2004. The final amount will probably change as Facebook's bankers gauge investor demand.

Joining corporate America's elite would give Facebook newfound financial clout as it tries to expand its audience of 845 million users. It also could help Facebook fend off an intensifying challenge from Google, which is looking to solidify its status as the Internet's most powerful company with a rival social network called Plus.

Following the model of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Zuckerberg, 27, set up two classes of stock that will ensure he retains control of the company.

He will have the final say on how nearly 57 percent of Facebook's stock votes, according to the filing.