“NEW YORK (Reuters) – LinkedIn sold $352.8 million worth of shares in its initial public offering on Wednesday, signaling that stock investors are eager to buy shares of social networking companies even if valuations are lofty.
LinkedIn sold 7.84 million shares for $45 each, a higher price than the company was expecting even earlier this week.
The strong investor demand for the offering bodes well for other social networking companies expected to go public in the coming months, including Facebook, Groupon, Twitter and Zynga.
While the companies have significantly different business models, they each tap social networks and the valuations for each are skyrocketing.
LinkedIn is a nine-year-old company that as of Wednesday is worth $4.25 billion. Facebook, which is expected to go public in April 2012, was valued at $70 billion in recent sales of the company’s private shares, up from $50 billion at the beginning of the year.
“There is a feeding frenzy is going on,” said Ben Howe, chief executive of boutique investment bank America’s Growth Capital.”
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