[Vision2020] Sachs it to me (us)

[Paul Rumelhart]

The way I understand it, the story goes like this.  Facebook is a 
private company that won't open it's books.  There are laws that state 
that you can't have more than 500 investors in a private company.  GS 
values Facebook at $50 billion, so it really wants in, and tried to make 
the case that it was one investor that is just selling shares to it's 
customers from that one investment.  The SEC came in and said "Ah, no." 
and scuttled that idea.  So now GS needs to exclude US investors and 
look for investors in areas where silly laws like that don't exist.

The way I see it, the SEC just saved the US investors from the 
consequences of GS making a bad investment in a firm in which it doesn't 
have enough information to properly valuate.

There is an interesting story on slashdot.org ("News for Nerds. Stuff 
that Matters.") about it, with some interesting discussion:  
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/01/18/004226/Goldman-Sachs-Says-No-Facebook-Shares-For-US-Investors

Paul

Dave wrote:
> /From /http://slashdot.org/ :
> /
> "In 2009, Robert Cringely speculated that the day might be coming when 
> Goldman Sachs decides the United States isn't worth dealing with 
> <http://www.cringely.com/2009/08/is-technology-evil/> anymore. Crazy, 
> eh? Maybe not. Blaming 'intense media attention,' Goldman Sachs has 
> decided to exclude US investors from a $1.5 billion Facebook offering 
> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12212043>. In a nicely-timed 
> all-investors-are-not-created-equal MLK Day statement 
> <http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/01/17/sorry-about-that-read-goldman-sachss-statement-on-excluding-us-facebook-investors/>, 
> the US taxpayer bailout beneficiary 
> <http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/goldman-sachs-paid-out-43-billion-us-taxpayer-money-foreign-companies> 
> said, 'Goldman Sachs decided to proceed only with the offer to 
> investors outside the US....We regret the consequences of this 
> decision, but Goldman Sachs believes this is the most prudent path to 
> take.'"
>
> /Dave
> -- 
> Windows, OSX, or Linux is the same choice as:
> McDonald's, Burger King, or a (real) Co-Op.
>   
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