March 28, 2012: 4:30pm EST – PrivCo has confirmed exclusively with a major secondary stock exchange that Facebook secondary market shares will not trade again on secondary markets after Friday at noon. The trading halt, previously reported by PrivCo, isn't temporary, but is now officially permanent. The next trades of Facebook stock will be with Facebook as a public company.
Current secondary market auctions ending early this Friday at noon will be the last Facebook pre-IPO trades. PrivCo expects these last minute trades will result in an especially high price, beating the prior $41/share clearing price given the finality as word of the begins to spread.
The permanent ban on trading represents the end of an entire cottage industry that has developed around trading in Facebook shares in secondary markets: from stock exchanges such as SharesPost and SecondMarket who rely on Facebook shares for over half their trades, to brokers pitching shares, to pre-IPO Facebook Funds formed to invest in them.
