How Facebook CEO Zuckerberg Lost $ 600 Million in a Day

The head of the Facebook social network, Mark Zuckerberg, is no longer on the list of the forty most affluent people on the planet, according to a ranking of the famous American economic magazine Forbes from August 2012. Overnight, a former Harvard student's fortune declined by $ 600 million due to a sharp drop in the company's shares in the OTC market of the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation (Nasdaq).

Founded in 2004 and becoming the largest in the world, the social network Facebook on May 18, 2012 launched the first public sale of shares (Initial Public Offering, IPO) with a placement price of $ 38. According to the American agency Associated Press, at the beginning of the IPO, the joint-stock company was able to attract more than 16 billion, while the whole company was valued at 104 billion.

On the second day of trading, Facebook shares began to fall and soon reached a historic low of $ 19.69. Having won back part of the fall, Mark Zuckerberg securities closed at $ 19.87 per share. Experts believe that market conditions could be affected by the expiration of the moratorium on the sale of 271.1 million shares of a social network for company employees and early investors. As reported in RIA-Novosti, this increased by 60% the volume of equity securities Facebook, which may take part in transactions.

The appearance of the social network Facebook on the May exchange was accompanied by various scandals. Due to technical problems, trading in securities of the company was delayed. Then, among the Nasdaq market participants, information leaked out that some banks shortly before the IPO learned about a decrease in the forecast for Facebook's annual profit and reported this to only some selected customers. A group of investors sued the social network and the organizers of the IPO, accusing the defendants of harming them.

The 28-year-old founder and head of the popular online platform, Mark Zuckerberg, is Facebook's largest shareholder. The list of key shareholders also includes Accel Partners venture fund, Russian-British DST group and ex-employee of the social network Dustin Moskowitz. According to the Bloomberg analytic index, Zuckerberg’s fortune is currently valued at $ 10.2 billion — the lowest rate since the IPO.

Since the start of trading, the value of shares in other founders of Facebook has significantly dropped. So, during the summer of 2012, Dustin Moskowitz lost about 2.4 billion dollars; the value of a stake in Eduardo Saverin decreased by $ 960 million; Christopher Hughes lost about $ 400 million in the Nasdaq market. David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect, told Bloomberg that the market is not sure about the future of the social network. However, he believes that the head of the online network is not too worried about reducing his wealth.

The head of the Facebook social network, Mark Zuckerberg, lost $ 600 million per day