Facebook IPO

Today is the Facebook IPO (Initial Public Offering) on the US NASDAQ exchange. Facebook has gone from being a private to a public company offering 421.23 Million shares at $38.00 each.

Information available on Bloomberg includes:

• FB US Equity – Bloomberg Ticker, US30303M1027 – ISIN, 30303M102 – CUSIP, B7TL820 US – SEDOL1, company identifiers from DES (Description)
• GIP (Tick Price Chart) – intra day price chart (at time of writing high $45.00, low $38.00, and average $39.93)
• SEC Form S-1 (Registration Statement) filed 1 Feb 2012 and other filings with the SEC (regulator) – Bloomberg function CF (Company Filings)
• Analysts research (BRC) and estimates (EE)
• and lots and lots of news on Facebook and its IPO

The Bloomberg IPO function shows that Facebook as by far the largest IPO this year.

If you want details of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook shares you need to look at the class-B shares – use Bloomberg’s MSH (Multiple Share Holdings) function.

Thomson Research has 11 analysts reports on Facebook. (See Thompson Research Tips )

Thomson One Banker has details of the Facebook IPO in its deals module (see Deals information from Thomson One Banker ) and financials and financial market info in its company analysis module. [FB-O -TOB Ticker, C901820175- TOB key, 30303M102 - CUSIP, B7TL820 - SEDOL]

For  informed comment on the valuation of Facebook see Facebook and “Field of Dreams”: Hoodies, Hubris and Hoopla from Aswath Damodaran’s Musings on Markets blog.

Related FAQs on Manchester Business Answers 24/7:

• Where can I find information on IPOs?
• Where can I find IPO prospectuses?

Thomson Research tips

Researching a public (quoted) company – whether for a research project or a job interview – you should look at Thomson Research.

Thomson Research is an excellent resource for analysts’ research reports, overview reports and company filings (e.g. annual reports).

When you login using the special database username and password you should get a screen with 4 tabs (Overview, Documents, Research and Tools).

Thomson Research (IE browser)

The Overview tab will give you summary reports for a company and its latest filings.

The Research tab gives access to analysts’ reports - often financial brokers/analysts who follow a company produce a report on a regular basis. (The analysts’ reports collection in Thomson Research was previously branded Investext).

Tips:

1) Thomsom Research requires care when looking for a company by name. For example, “Tate & Lyle” or just “Tate &” will be ok, but “Tate”, “Tate Lyle” or “Tate and Lyle” will all give you no matches. Example video screencast – http://screencast.com/t/tTsfonbej

2) Thomson Research only works with the Internet Explorer (IE) browser. You will not get an error message if you try to use Firefox, Chrome, Safari … just blank pages or sections of pages. Recently we have observed a small problem with IE version 7 – the drop down list for “Report Date” sometimes does not work so you are stuck with the default of “Last 2 Years”. (see also Thomson Research only fully works with IE  )

3) Get our database guide on Thomson Research from the How to research guides page, and browse other posts tagged Thomson Research.

Referencing

Analysts reports do not fall neatly into a standard format for referencing. Who is playing the role of publisher? The company the authors work for, since they will have given the report to their clients, or Thomson Reuters, since the report came from their investment report collection. Make sure that your reference has enough detail that readers can see where it came from and confirm if they had retrieved the identical report. For example:

Meltz, M. A., Lewis, D. & Lovell, N. (2009). [J.P. Morgan report on] The McGraw-Hill Companies – 07 Dec 2009. Thomson Research Investment Research Collection Rpt. 15613728  [Online]. Available from: Thomson Research – http://research.thomsonib.com/ [Accessed 05 Jan. 2010].

Company Financial Analysis (Global Companies)

The library has a number of useful resources for the financial analysis of public companies (companies quoted on a stock exchange).

Company Accounts

Thomson Reuters’ Worldscope database provides historical accounting data – balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. It is available through Thomson One Banker and Datastream. Bloomberg also has accounting data – command FA (Financial Analysis).

Thomson One Banker, Datastream and Bloomberg can also provide data on a company’s financial market performance – e.g. historical shares prices and returns, and corresponding data for market indices.

Company Filings (including Annual Reports)

Company Filings are available on PI Navigator,  Thomson Research, and Bloomberg. (Recent company reports are usually available direct from the company website.)

Analysts Reports

Analyst/Broker reports are available from Thomson Research and Bloomberg (command BRC).

Company News

Factiva from Dow Jones is a extensive online news database covering a wide range of sources. (See How Business News can enhance you research for more details.) Bloomberg also provides a wide range of company, financial market and economic news.

Related FAQ questions:

• Where can I find company financials, e.g., balance sheets etc.?
• Where can I find current and historical company annual reports?
• How do I find analyst reports (investment bank reports)?
• Where do I find current news about a company?
• How do I compare a company to its industry?

For further tips: use tags below to find other posts on these databases, and look at  the How to research … guides,

IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) – prospectuses

Thomson One Banker (Deals module) is a good way of getting a list of IPO deals but it often does not give access to the IPO prospectus. For an individual company this can be obtained from Thomson One Banker (Company Analysis) or Thomson Research – under Filings since the IPO prospectus is one of the documements that companies have to file with the regulators.

PI Navigator provides a search interface that can be used to search for all deals on an exchange within a chosen time period.

PI Navigator - IPO prospectus search - click to enlarge

Related FAQ answers:

• Where can I find IPO prospectuses?
• Where can I find information on IPOs?

Note the companies do not always choose to float on their local exchange. If in Thomson One Banker Deals you search for IPOs of UK companies then the results will include IPOs on the Nasdaq and other exchanges as well as London (Main market and AIM).

Industry information from Thomson Research

Thomson Research is best known as a source of analysts’ reports on quoted companies and of company annual reports (and other company filings). It also has a wealth of industry reports including Datamonitor Industry Profiles.

From Manchester Business Answers 24/7:

• Where do I find industry statistics and reports?

If you use the Industry criteria in a Thomson Research search you will only get industry reports. This is not a technique that you can use to look for reports on all companies in a specific industry.

Note: Thomson Research requires a special username and password and only works with Internet Explorer. See previous blog post

• Thomson Research only works fully with IE

For industry information also consider Markets and sectors databases.

How to Research Global Company Data

 

We have a wide range of information available to you connected to the Research of Global Company data focusing on areas such as:

• Company Financials: Examine up to ten years worth of Financial Data. For example, analyse the share price growth of Toyota Motor over the last decade. Research over 60,000 Public International quoted Companies.

Access:  Thomson One Banker  

• Target Sector Listings: Track a comapny’s performance against their key competitors. Research the top 230,000 international public/private companies across 200 countries.

Access: Orbis 

• Investment Analysis: Gain an insider’s view from leading International Investment banks. For eaxmple, discover how Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley rate China’s leading Petroleum provider. View analysis reports for over 60,000 companies.

Access: Thomson Research

• Market Analysis:  Develop an understanding of International Markets.

  Monitor global companies in the daily news and view data feeds from the world’s stock exchanges. Create a graph or chart based display of,  for example, Exon Mobil’s revenue growth.

Access: Datastream, Bloomberg

• Company/Industry News: Monitor company or industry developments from leading global news sources. Up to twenty years of daily updated news is available. For example examinehow the World’s press reacted to the latest Samsung Electronics trading figures statement. 

Access: Factiva

Please see our brand new How to Research Global Company Data guide and related FAQs from Manchester Business Answers 24/7 for further information.

Thomson Research – search by industry

Adding an industry to your search criteria  in Thomson Research is more restricting than you might expect.

If you select an industry in your search criteria, then the results will only include industry reports.

[The Thomson Reuters helpdesk have confirmed that the analyst reports on individual companies are not picked up when there is an industry criteria in the search.]

If you want to search for reports on several companies in an industry, the simplest way is to do a separate search for each company.

TIP: Clicking on the SIC or NAICS links on the Thomson Research search page gives you a PDF document of the industry codes used.

FAQ answer updated:
How do I find analyst reports (investment bank reports)?

Thomson Research only works fully with IE

Thomson Research only works correctly with the Internet Explorer (IE) browser versions 6 and 7 (and you have to get the username and password right).

Thomson Research is a good resource for analysts’ research reports, overview reports and company filings (annual reports).

When you login using the special database username and password you should get a screen with 4 tabs.

Thomson Research (IE browser)

Expected tabs:  Overview, Documents, Research, Tools

Overview will give you summary reports for a company and its latest filings. Research gives access to analysts’ reports.

If you login using the wrong username and password you may find only 3 tabs

Thomson Research IE but wrong username/password

Incorrect password – only 3 tabs.

You can get access to the company profile information.

There is no research tab for access to the full search interface.

If you try to access using Firefox and the correct username and password, You get 2 tabs: Content Profile and SEC.

You can access some research reports as follows:
- Use the content profile tab to select a company
- In the Research Reports section you can select a link to get to the reports

Thomson Research (Firefox)

NOT Internet Explorer (IE) browser

There are 2 tabs: Content Profile and SEC

(You may get the search interface, but without a tab there is no way that you can get back to the research tab search screen.)

There are similar problems if you try to access Thomson Research using Google Chrome as your browser.

Thomson Reuters helpdesk have confirmed that Thomson Research is only designed and tested for Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7 [15 May 2010]