According to a report by CNBC, Accel Partners, who was one of the first companies to invest in Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), has just thrown 50 million shares of the failing stock on its own investors. The shares have been tanking in price ever since the company’s ill fated IPO in May of this year. Many insiders have just been waiting for the initial lockup period to expire, so they could dump their shares and bail out of the sinking ship.
Accel was able to transfer approximately $1 billion in stock, or about 50 million shares, to its limited partners. These shares represent most of what Accel was able to access at the first expiration of the lockup period. This move will allow the shareholders to now make a daily decision on their own, of whether they want to keep the shares, or sell them.
It is presumed that many will be selling, as the shares have dropped nearly 50% since the IPO. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has constantly been trying to find a way to boost revenue and win back their investor’s confidence, but so far, it seems to have failed. Even their attempts to speed up the purchase of Instagram has had little, if any impact on the stock price.
The shares were trading more than 6% down after the lockup expired, and analysts don’t seem very hopeful of a rescue anytime soon. Facebook’s partner, Zynga, has also felt the heat, as their stocks continue to plummet as well. Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) offers many of the popular games on Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), such as The Ville, and Words With Friends, however, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s new gaming strategy has caused Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA)’s popular games to be moved further from the front page of the games list. Now it seems that both companies are struggling to stay afloat. The next few days and weeks will definitely be an interesting time for the social networking giant, as they try to recoup the losses.
