Facebook's initial public offering has been one of the most hotly-anticipated in corporate history, and today it lived up to the hype.
The social network priced its flotation at $38 a share, valuing the company at $104bn (£65.8bn) - more than any other US company has been worth on the day of its market debut.
The busines, which was founded by 28-year old Mark Zuckerberg from his dorm room at Harvard University, raised more than $16bn in the process, marking the second biggest initial public offering there has even been. Only Visa’s was larger.
Shares in Facebook are expected to climb even higher when they begin trading on Nasdaq tomorrow, under the FB ticker, as frenzied demand from investors outweighs concerns over the long-term prospects of the business.
Mr Zuckerberg will mark the start of trading by ringing the stock exchange’s bell remotely from his California headquarters, where around a thousand Facebook staff are devoting the night to a "hackathon" - the sessions the social network runs when it wants to quickly develop a new product.
The record flotation came even as some of Facebook’s biggest and earliest investors made last-minute decisions to sell more shares in Thursday’s IPO, fuelling concerns over their faith in the long-term value of the business.
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