Facebook valued at $102.8 bn in final auction on SharesPost

Facebook Inc. (FB)’s implied valued rose 8.9 percent to $102.8 billion yesterday in what was expected to be the last auction of its stock on SharesPost Inc.’s exchange before the social-networking company’s initial public offering.

SharesPost completed the auction at a price of $44.10 for 150,000 units, the firm said in an e-mailed statement. That’s up from an auction earlier this month with a price of $40.50 a share, valuing the company at $94.4 billion, based on a share count of 2.33 billion.

Facebook (FB), the world’s most popular social-networking service, filed for an IPO last month that could value the business at between $75 billion and $100 billion, people familiar with the matter have said. The Menlo Park, California- based company, which has more than 845 million users, is seeking $5 billion in what would be the largest Internet IPO on record.

The company decided to halt the trading of its shares on secondary markets at the end of this week as it prepares for the IPO, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Facebook aims to hold the offering in early May, one person said. SharesPost moved up the date of the Facebook auction to yesterday from April 2 to meet the deadline.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission settled with SharesPost to resolve claims that the online marketplace acted as an unregistered broker of shares. It was the first action in a broad probe of trades involving nonpublic startups.