Twitter begins IPO process

Twitter, everyone’s favourite 140 character messaging service, is planning an IPO and has filed an S-1 form with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to begin that process according to a tweet from the company yesterday (of course they announced with a tweet)

We’ve confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale.

— Twitter (@twitter) September 12, 2013

This is big news in the digital space, with Twitter a major platform for online communication and integral to how many of use now use the internet, but also because it is about time the markets got over its Facebook “hangover”. The Facebook IPO valued the company at an impressive $100 billion, but it was marred with trading errors and a general belief that the stock was overvalued, causing a pretty rapid slide on opening day.

Twitter, by contrast, is expected to float with a valuation of somewhere between $15 and $20 billion – their last investment round put the company at $10 billion and those investors will want a return on their money. The company is already making strong revenues with its sponsored tweets programme, and the company has not seen the kind of backlash that Facebook sees on a regular basis.

Bloomberg is reporting that Goldman Sachs will be underwriting the IPO, which will likely be on either the NASDAQ or NYSE, with my money on the former.