Twitter begins flotation process in a bid to become public

Social networking site Twitter filed documents for flotation on the stock market last night. 

The company made the announcement that it had filed for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) and has submitted a form to the American market regulator, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in one of its trademark 140-character tweets on the site itself.

The tweet read: “We’ve confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale.”

Later, the firm followed the tweet with a picture of the Twitter offices and a short message that read: “Now, back to work.”

The San Francisco-based micro blogging site is one of the largest and most powerful social media platforms in the world. It was founded in 2006 and has over 200 million users worldwide, including 10 million active users in the UK, who post 400 million tweets a day.

The experts valued the site at around £6.65 billion last month and say its long-awaited flotation is expected to generate the company’s founders, Evan Williams, 41, Biz Stone, 39 and Jack Dorsey, 36, hundreds of millions of pounds worth of profits each.

The move comes after Facebook floated itself on the US stock market in May 2012 for £66.2 billion. 

Citing Facebook’s strong growth in mobile as an example, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg advised Twitter at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.

Mr Zuckerberg said: “For a smooth IPO, you have to know everything about your company. You’ve got to stay focused on doing the right stuff.”

At present, Twitter’s IPO is managed by Goldman Sachs, who hope to avoid the problems encountered by Facebook during its transition to public ownership. No further details have been provided about the timing and price of offering.

Aastha Gill