The IPO is expected to far surpass Google’s $1.9bn (£1.2bn) public listing in 2004 and Netscape’s $2bn (£1.3bn) offering a decade before that. The largest Internet-related IPO to occur since Google’s came last December when social networking game developer Zynga raised $1bn (£631m). Cooley and Ropes & Gray landed lead legal roles on that listing, according to our previous reports. (Click here for a list of the top 10 IPO’s in US history.)
Also appearing on Facebook’s S-1 filing are general counsel Theodore Ullyot, deputy GC David Kling and associate GC Michael Johnson.
Ullyot is an ex-Kirkland & Ellis partner who joined the company in 2008. According to Facebook’s S-1 filing, his base salary in 2011 was $275,000 (£174,000). He also received a $78,750 (£50,000) bonus in the first half of the year as well as an additional grant of 239,808 restricted stock units that vest on 15 July 2014.
Facebook has also agreed to pay Ullyot a $400,000 (£250,000) “annual retention bonus” for each of his first five years of employment at the social media company. That pushes the company’s total cash payments to Ullyot in 2011 to $749,583 (£473,000).
Taking into account more than $6m (£3.8m) in stock awards to Ullyot last year, the GC’s total compensation package for 2011 amounts to nearly $7m (£4.4m).
In comparison, LinkedIn general counsel Erika Rottenberg saw her shares and options in the company valued at approximately $27m (£17m) by the social networking site’s IPO last May.
