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Mark Zuckerberg will sell as many as 75 million Facebook shares, currently worth $12.8 billion, over the next 18 months
Mark Zuckerberg will sell a large number of Facebook shares over the next 18 months in sales that would be worth between $6 billion and $12.8 billion based on the stock's current price.
The intention to sell between 35 million and 75 million shares was disclosed in a securities filing late Friday.
Proceeds of the sale will go "to fund the philanthropic initiatives of Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan," the filing said.
Facebook earnings: Two ways the social-networking titan can grow even larger
Oct. 31, 2017
With 1.3 billion people using its site daily, a valuation topping $500 billion and projected third-quarter revenue of nearly $10 billion, Facebook Inc. has established itself as one of the greatest attention-capturing machines in modern history.
Investors have rewarded the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company, sending its stock to a record high Monday ahead of its third-quarter earnings release Wednesday after the close. Expected by analysts to log quarterly revenue of $9.86 billion, or $4.85 per active user, according to FactSet, Facebook has been adding to its user base, but has also succeeded in squeezing an incrementally increasing amount of revenue out of each active user while effectively controlling the online ad market along with Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
Earnings: Analysts surveyed by FactSet project Facebook will log earnings per share of $1.28, up from 82 cents in the year-earlier quarter. The Estimize consensus, made up of estimates from hedge-fund executives, brokerages and buy-side analysts, is for earnings per share of $1.37.
Revenue: The FactSet consensus is for sales of $9.85 billion, up from $7 billion in the year-earlier period. The Estimize consensus is for $9.95 billion.
What else to look for: Mobile ad monetization has been very strong, according to Mahaney. In a note to investors last week, the analyst wrote that the company’s mobile ad sales are showing “significant growth” and now make up 88% of the company’s overall sales.
Mahaney, who has an outperform rating with a price target of $195 on Facebook, wrote that through RBC’s research into ad spend, his team of analysts found that advertisers were interested in upping their buys on Instragram.
While advertisers may be interested in upping their spend on Instagram, Facebook’s overall growth rate has been slowing as a result of limited growth in its ad loads, wrote MKM Parnters analysts Rob Sanderson in a note to clients Monday. The analyst, who has a buy rating and a price target of $200 on Facebook, sees the growth situation thusly:
For the past four quarters, executives have been consistent in its message that limited growth in ad loads would cause revenue growth rates to “come down meaningfully” after mid-2017. Consensus currently reflects about 1,830 basis points of revenue growth deceleration over the next six quarters, more than double the 710 bps over the trailing six quarters. Upside result could create domino effect on consensus, moderating the rate of deceleration through 2018, and could drive more bullish investor sentiment.
Facebook has been warning that it will slow down the pace of ad growth in its core News Feed for more than a year, but revenue growth hasn’t slowed down. Susquehanna analyst Patil, who has a positive rating with a price target of $200 on Facebook, also wrote to clients about the ad load slowdown:
Regarding ad load, we continue to expect Facebook to emphasize the core news feed ad load growth slowdown and its likely impact on revenue growth; however, based on our extensive checks, we believe Facebook has many levers to sustain strong growth, including recent video initiatives (such as Watch and mid-roll ads), Instagram monetization ramping, upward bias to pricing, and more efficient news feed usage, among others.
Reports EPS of $1.59 vs estimates of $1.28 (FactSet) ; $1.37 (Estimize)
Revenue of $10.33 billion vs estimates of $9.85 billion (FactSet) ; $9.95 billion (Estimize)
Facebook reports better-than-expected Q3 results but shares fall on 2018 expense forecast
Nov. 1, 2017
Facebook reported third-quarter profit and sales that topped Wall Street expectations, but its shares fell after it said on a conference call that 2018 expenses would rise 45 percent to 60 percent, or faster than expected sales.
Here's the key data:
EPS: $1.59 per share, more than the $1.28 a share expected.
Revenue: $10.3 billion, up 47 percent and more than $9.84 billion expected
MAUs: 2.07 billion versus 2.06 billion expected
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned that protecting the site from those wanting to spread fake news and hate speech will drive costs higher.
"We're serious about preventing abuse on our platforms. We're investing so much in security that it will impact our profitability," Zuckerberg said.
On a conference call to discuss the results, he added that protecting Facebook's community is "more important" than boosting profit.
The company said yesterday it would double to 20,000 the number of workers dedicated to keeping fake news and hate speech off its sites by the end of next year.
CFO David Wehner said on the same call that 2018 operating expenses will rise significantly as the company pays more for security and original content.
Capital expenditures will double next year, Wehner said.
For the quarter ended Sept. 30, online marketers bought more Facebook ads to target messages at mobile internet users.
Facebook's ability to target digital ads at users based on their "likes" and other online behavior is so effective that some in Congress want to regulate its ability to sell political advertising.
Third-quarter ad sales rose 49 percent to $10.1 billion, while mobile sales rose to $8.9 billion, or 88 percent of all sales.
The average cost of an ad rose 35 percent, Wehner said, while total ad impressions were up 10 percent from a year ago.
Ad prices will have more impact on future ad revenue than the number of ads Facebook sells, Wehner told investors and analysts on the call.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said on the conference call that Facebook now has more than 6 million advertisers, while the company's Instagram service has more than 2 million.
Monthly average users rose 16 percent from a year ago, to 2.07 billion.
The company's operating margin, a key measure of profit, widened to 50 percent of revenue from 44 percent a year ago, even though head count rose 47 percent to 23,165.
Net income surged to $4.7 billion from $2.63 billion a year earlier.
Long term support seems to be the 50 week moving average (currently at around $150.05). It has held that line since early 2013. I'd be a buyer if it goes back there.
Facebook earnings: How will news feed changes impact revenue?
News feed accounts for 85% of overall Facebook sales, says analyst
Jan 28, 2018
Messing around with the software that powers Facebook Inc. and its “news feed“ cash cow can be a dangerous exercise, so investors will want to pay close attention to signs that recently announced changes will impact financial results.
Facebook announced the changes to news feed in early January as a response, at least in part, to mounting criticism over the outsize influence the platform can have on users’ well-being, American elections and, of course, Facebook’s goal of “building community and bringing the world closer together.” When the social network announces earnings after the market closes on Jan. 31, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is expected to address the issue again and likely lay out the financial effects.
News feed is vital to turning Facebook’s 2 billion-plus users into cash—Facebook is expected to collect about $6 in revenue per user in the December quarter, according to FactSet. Not only is news feed the most prominent product the company offers, but that single piece of software is responsible for 85% of Facebook revenue, according to Barclays research.
Messing with news feed, in other words, is messing with future returns, a point which Zuckerberg made clear when he announced the company’s plans.
“I want to be clear: By making these changes, I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down,” he wrote. “But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable. And if we do the right thing, I believe that will be good for our community and our business over the long term, too.”
For analysts and other industry watchers reading between the lines, Zuckerberg basically said that, because the company expects its users to spend less time on the company’s main app, fewer ads will be displayed to users, which means less revenue. Barclays analyst Ross Sandler, who rates Facebook a buy with a $215 price target, wrote in a January note to clients that he expects the changes to shave off “low single digits” from the company’s 2018 revenue growth estimate of 39%, compared with the year earlier.
Earnings: Analysts on average project Facebook will report earnings of $1.94 a share, according to FactSet. Contributors to Estimize, which crowdsources estimates from analysts, fund managers and academics, predict earnings of $1.98 a share, on average.
Revenue: Analysts polled by FactSet expect that Facebook will log fourth-quarter sales of $12.53 billion, skewed largely to mobile advertising, which is expected to account for nearly $11 billion. Estimize contributors forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $12.64 billion.
Reports EPS of $2.21 vs estimates of $1.94 (FactSet), $1.98 (Estimize), $1.95 (Thomson Reuters)
Revenue of $12.97 billion vs estimates of $12.53 billion (FactSet), $12.64 billion (Estimize), $12.55 billion (Thomson Reuters)
DAUs: 1.4 billion vs 1.41 billion estimate
MAUs: 2.13 billion vs 2.13 billion estimate
ARPU: $6.18 vs $5.90 estimate
Mobile advertising revenue: Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 89% of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2017, up from approximately 84% of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities: Cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities were $41.71 billion at the end of the fourth quarter of 2017.
So Zuckerberg knew of Facebook issues (maybe even the impending departure of Alex Stamos?) and planned to dump his FB shares long ago. Publicly announcing his planned sale of FB stock last Sept was just a cover up tactic ?
Mark Zuckerberg has sold $357 million of stock this month, part of plans to unload up to $12 billion
26 Feb 2018
Mark Zuckerberg sold $357 million worth of Facebook shares this month, ramping up his regularly timed stock selling to fund his philanthropic efforts.
The CEO and founder, who sold just under $1 billion last year in two dozen sales made at regular intervals, executed seven sale transactions in February, according to his latest securities filings.
Zuckerberg said in September he would sell 35 million to 75 million shares during the following 18 months to help fund the philanthropic Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
The planned sales, worth $6 billion to $12.5 billion when announced, would be worth up to $13 billion at the stock's current price near $185 a share.
People trying to compare this to Equifax, but Equifax users can't really run away like Facebook users can. Not sure if average Facebook user really cares about this?
Mainstream media really pounding on this issue because they think FB gave Trump the win.
People trying to compare this to Equifax, but Equifax users can't really run away like Facebook users can. Not sure if average Facebook user really cares about this?
Mainstream media really pounding on this issue because they think FB gave Trump the win.
people are too addicted
I would guess there's a large percentage of users whose entire social life is tied to facebook.
I want to share an update on the Cambridge Analytica situation -- including the steps we've already taken and our next steps to address this important issue.
We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you. I've been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn't happen again. The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago. But we also made mistakes, there's more to do, and we need to step up and do it.
Here's a timeline of the events:
In 2007, we launched the Facebook Platform with the vision that more apps should be social. Your calendar should be able to show your friends' birthdays, your maps should show where your friends live, and your address book should show their pictures. To do this, we enabled people to log into apps and share who their friends were and some information about them
In 2013, a Cambridge University researcher named Aleksandr Kogan created a personality quiz app. It was installed by around 300,000 people who shared their data as well as some of their friends' data. Given the way our platform worked at the time this meant Kogan was able to access tens of millions of their friends' data.
In 2014, to prevent abusive apps, we announced that we were changing the entire platform to dramatically limit the data apps could access. Most importantly, apps like Kogan's could no longer ask for data about a person's friends unless their friends had also authorized the app. We also required developers to get approval from us before they could request any sensitive data from people. These actions would prevent any app like Kogan's from being able to access so much data today.
In 2015, we learned from journalists at The Guardian that Kogan had shared data from his app with Cambridge Analytica. It is against our policies for developers to share data without people's consent, so we immediately banned Kogan's app from our platform, and demanded that Kogan and Cambridge Analytica formally certify that they had deleted all improperly acquired data. They provided these certifications.
Last week, we learned from The Guardian, The New York Times and Channel 4 that Cambridge Analytica may not have deleted the data as they had certified. We immediately banned them from using any of our services. Cambridge Analytica claims they have already deleted the data and has agreed to a forensic audit by a firm we hired to confirm this. We're also working with regulators as they investigate what happened.
This was a breach of trust between Kogan, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. But it was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it. We need to fix that.
In this case, we already took the most important steps a few years ago in 2014 to prevent bad actors from accessing people's information in this way. But there's more we need to do and I'll outline those steps here:
First, we will investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before we changed our platform to dramatically reduce data access in 2014, and we will conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity. We will ban any developer from our platform that does not agree to a thorough audit. And if we find developers that misused personally identifiable information, we will ban them and tell everyone affected by those apps. That includes people whose data Kogan misused here as well.
Second, we will restrict developers' data access even further to prevent other kinds of abuse. For example, we will remove developers' access to your data if you haven't used their app in 3 months. We will reduce the data you give an app when you sign in -- to only your name, profile photo, and email address. We'll require developers to not only get approval but also sign a contract in order to ask anyone for access to their posts or other private data. And we'll have more changes to share in the next few days.
Third, we want to make sure you understand which apps you've allowed to access your data. In the next month, we will show everyone a tool at the top of your News Feed with the apps you've used and an easy way to revoke those apps' permissions to your data. We already have a tool to do this in your privacy settings, and now we will put this tool at the top of your News Feed to make sure everyone sees it.
Beyond the steps we had already taken in 2014, I believe these are the next steps we must take to continue to secure our platform.
I started Facebook, and at the end of the day I'm responsible for what happens on our platform. I'm serious about doing what it takes to protect our community. While this specific issue involving Cambridge Analytica should no longer happen with new apps today, that doesn't change what happened in the past. We will learn from this experience to secure our platform further and make our community safer for everyone going forward.
I want to thank all of you who continue to believe in our mission and work to build this community together. I know it takes longer to fix all these issues than we'd like, but I promise you we'll work through this and build a better service over the long term.
09-22-2017, 04:56 PM
Stupid thing was looking like it was finally going to let lose and Zuckerberg sandbagged it.
buy the dip?
