Facebook investor aims for $5.7bn float

Russia's biggest web firm shares ahoy

Mail.ru, which owns a stake in Facebook, has set the price it hopes to get for its shares when it floats on the London Stock Exchange.

The Initial Public Offering was announced earlier this month. Today's filing with the London Stock Exchange shows an indicative price range of between $23.70 and $27.70 per share, actually a global depositary receipt.

These figures value the company at between $4.78bn (£3.04bn) and $5.63bn (£3.58bn).

The company also owns stakes in Groupon and Zynga - the company behind Farmville.

The Russian company bought a 1.96 per cent stake in the giant social network for $200m in 2009. The sale effectively gives investors their only chance to buy into Facebook which is otherwise privately held.

Mail.ru is not just counting on Facebook - some of the cash raised from the sale of shares will go towards buying an extra 7.5 per cent stake in Russia's biggest social network vKontakte, giving it a 32.49 per cent stake in total. ®