Facebook will halt trading of its shares in secondary markets by the beginning of April, according to a report.
Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg reports that Facebook representatives told firms participating in trades in such markets to stop trading this week.
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Facebook reps declined comment on the report.
The social networking giant filed in February to raise $5 billion in an IPO. The timing of the IPO has never been made public, but a previous report pegged it in late May.
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It's unclear whether this move would mean Facebook would now go public sooner than anticipated. Pulling out of secondary markets such as SharesPost and SecondMarket gives Facebook time to "account for its shareholding base as it makes final preparations for an IPO," according to the report.
The last time Facebook withdrew from such markets, in late January, was to make way for its IPO filing. Facebook's value has zoomed as high as $100 billion based on share prices in secondary trading.
However, the valuation dropped to $93 billion in a late-February auction, according to the report.
Thumbnail image courtesy of Katrina.Tuliao and Crunchies2009 via Flickr
Bonus: How the Social Media IPOs of 2011 Fared
1. Yandex (YNDX) -20.8% from its IPO Price
Yandex, a Russian search engine, raised $1.3 billion when it went public in May, making it the biggest social media IPO of the year.
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This story originally published on Mashable here.
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