BOSTON (AP) — Ask people what they think about Facebook, and you're likely to hear everything from "It's a terrific way to connect with friends and family," to "It's a colossal drain on time and productivity."
Soon, you could start getting a third response: It's a big investment opportunity.
Facebook stock is expected to begin trading publicly on May 18. Market pros and average investors alike are sizing up the company's strengths and weaknesses. The key question: Can Facebook parlay its vast legions of users into huge profits, as Google did following its 2004 initial public offering?
The Facebook IPO is expected to be the biggest for an Internet company, surpassing Google's. It will be hard for mutual fund managers to ignore; especially those specializing in technology stocks, and the large-cap, growth-stock market segment that Facebook will join.
See also: America's 10 Biggest IPOs
Facebook might seem to be an obvious potential buy for those managers, given its amazing rise from Harvard dorm-room startup in 2004 to the world's largest online social network.
But successful stock-picking means being price-conscious. Until late last week, fund managers had little to go on in assessing Facebook's potential investment value.
That's when Facebook disclosed that its shares would be priced in a range of $28 to $35. The specific price is to be released the day before trading, and decision time is approaching for fund managers considering Facebook for their portfolios.
A select few have already jumped in. Dozens have acquired private shares of Facebook over the past year-and-a-half.
More than 30 Fidelity Investments mutual funds recently owned private Facebook shares, including Fidelity's largest stock fund, Contrafund (FCNTX). But Facebook made up just 0.1 percent of that $84 billion fund's portfolio at the end of March, and other Fidelity funds holding Facebook had similarly small investments.
Another big fund company, T. Rowe Price, recently reported that 19 of its funds owned private Facebook shares, in nearly all instances making up less than 1 percent of each portfolio.
Morgan Stanley has also been active. Its $1.7 billion Focus Growth Fund (AMOAX) recently held 3.6 percent of its portfolio in Facebook shares.
Funds from smaller companies have purchased Facebook stock on secondary markets that are off-limits to average investors. Below are comments from interviews this week with managers of two such funds: Chris Brown of Pax World Balanced (PAXWX) and Thomas Vandeventer of Tocqueville Opportunity (TOPPX). They discuss prospects for the stock:
REWARDS:
Facebook's potential is undeniable because the site has more than 900 million users. There are huge profit opportunities for Facebook and its investors from advertising revenue.
Brown believes much of that is still untapped. He sees a big opportunity if Facebook can generate earnings from highly-targeted ads tailored to appeal to specific Facebook users based on their interests.
"Right now, the ads are more about building brand awareness," Brown says. "But if advertisers could specifically target a certain demographic, by age group or gender, for example, that's where the profit margins would be very beneficial."
