LinkedIn IPO Is Set for Thursday

LinkedIn is set to go public May 19. The business-oriented networking site hopes to raise as much as $274 million this week in what will be one of the first major social media IPOs.

LinkedIn will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LNKD. Its shares are expected to trade in the $32 to $35 range and 7.84 million shares will be available. The company will likely be valued around $3 billion after the IPO.

LinkedIn announced its intention to file for an IPO in January. At the time, the company was valued at $2.51 billion based on shares traded on secondary market SharesPost.

The eight-year-old company hit the 100 million user mark in March and became profitable in 2010 with a net income of $10.1 million and net revenues of $161.4 million in the first nine months of 2010. In Q1, LinkedIn’s revenues hit $93.9 million, a 110% increase from the year-ago period. Net income was $2 million, compared to $1.8 million in Q1 2010.

LinkedIn is the first of a slew of anticipated social media IPOs set for the next year or so. Others include Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, Pandora, Kayak, Yelp, Rovio and Zillow. Renren, billed as the “Facebook of China,” went public this month and raised $743.4 million.

via mashable.com