Facebook will raise stock price, $100 billion at IPO

Facebook will raise the price of shares for its initial public offering, possibly vaulting the world's most popular social network to the first $100 billion valuation of a U.S. company at the time of its public debut.

A source told the Mercury News on Monday that Facebook will increase the range of possible prices for the Menlo Park Company’s initial shares, raising the maximum price to $38. At that price, Facebook would be valued at more than $104 billion and bring in $12.8 billion. The largest U.S. IPO valuation on record is shipping company UPS at $60 billion, according to Dealogic records.

Facebook is expected to sell 337 million shares to investors Thursday night, after the final price -- which could still be higher -- is set. After initially saying in Securities and Exchange Commission documents that it expected to charge $28 to $35 per share, Facebook's new range will be $34 to $38, a person with knowledge of the move said, verifying earlier reports.

The company will receive about 53 percent of the total, before expenses, and the rest will go to existing shareholders such as CEO and cofounder Mark Zuckerberg, who will sell 30.2 million shares to cover taxes on other Facebook stock rewards. After the sale, a total of 2.74 billion shares will be held in Facebook, according to Bloomberg News calculations that include restricted stock units and other shares Facebook does not yet include in its statements.

Both Facebook's valuation and total take would smash all records for Internet companies. Google holds both records for a U.S. company: The Mountain View search giant took home $1.9 billion at a valuation of $23 billion in 2004. Bloomberg counts German Internet company T-Online's 2000 take of $2.8 billion as the world record, but Facebook could take in more than four times that much.

Facebook would rank fifth all-time for total amount raised in a U.S. IPO, according to Renaissance Capital; San Francisco-based Visa holds that record at nearly $17.9 billion.

If all goes as expected, Facebook stock would hit the open market Friday morning on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol FB. Zuckerberg will reportedly ring the traditional opening bell from the company's Peninsula headquarters.

Norway Tragedy

Norway Tragedy:I saw many dead people

   The police uniform shouted for the campers to come closer. The gunman who killed at least 80 people at an island youth camp northwest of Oslo used his disguise to lure in his victims, then shot them twice to make sure they were dead, survivors said in the village of Sundvollen, taken after the massacre.

"I lost several friends," said Berzingi, whose pants were stained with blood. He said he used the cell phone of one of his fallen friends to call police.

"I saw many dead people," said 15-year old Elise, whose father, Vidar Myhre, didn't want disclose her last name. She just feet away the gunman when he opened fire in the camp on Utoya island.

Elise said she had just come out from an information meeting in a nearby building, she heard gunshots. She saw a police officer and thought she was safe, but then he started shooting.

"He first shot people on the island. Afterward he started shooting people in the water," she said.

The girl phoned her parents, whispering to them what was going on. “They told me not to panic and that everything would be OK." Her parents also told her to get rid of a brightly colored jacket she was wearing to not draw attention to herself.

Police said the man arrested in the shooting is Norwegian and had set off a bomb that killed seven people outside the prime minister's headquarters in Oslo.

A Sundvollen hotel, but the stories they told were of utter terror.

Dana Berzingi said the fake police officer ordered people to come closer, then pulled weapons and ammunition from a bag and started shooting.