Report: Wall Street Braces For Facebook IPO

Rumors of a Facebook IPO filing have been circulating the Web for weeks, but the social networking giant may reportedly put to rest all speculation as early as Wednesday and seek to raise nearly $10 billion for its massively popular web site.

The Wall Street Journal dubbed the filing as a "defining moment for the latest Web investing boom," and said that if Facebook does raise its expected $10 billion, it would value the networking site between $75 billion and $100 billion. It would also make the web site the fourth largest public offerings in United States history, behind Visa, General Motors, and AT&T, and would beat out Google by a long shot to claim the title of biggest U.S. Internet offering in history.

Google, as a point of comparison, raised $1.9 billion and was valued at $23 billion during its filing in 2004.

Financial services firm Morgan Stanley is rumored to be the front runner for the deal, the Journal said, citing people "familiar with the matter." Rival firm Goldman Sachs Group has also been rumored to be in the mix, and will most likely play a role in the filing, even if Morgan Stanley wins the highly sought-after "left-lead" position.

While a February 1 filing seems to be the consensus of most industry reports, sources told the Journal that this date is one of many being considered by Facebook executives, who reportedly may wait as long as June to go public. The highly anticipated filing will disclose how much Facebook hopes to raise from the stock market, along with and details regarding its current financial standing and growth estimates. In September, internet market researcher eMarketer estimated Facebook's 2011 revenue at $4.27 billion, which would be more than double its 2010 revenue of $2 billion.

Facebook has on-boarded approximately 800 million users across the globe since its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, launched the site in 2004.