Financial thoughts

At long last, the Holy Grail of Internet IPOs is here. Facebook filed Wednesday to raise $5 billion in an initial public offering.

In 2011, Facebook earned $1 billion on sales of $3.7 billion. As of December 31, Facebook had 845 million monthly active users.

The company crossed the line into profitability in 2009, five years after it launched in founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room. Facebook earned $229 million that year on sales of $777 million, and has remained profitable ever since.

It’s not yet known on which stock exchange Facebook will trade, though it said it plans to use the ticker symbol "FB."

Facebook will likely re-file its paperwork several times over the coming months. Those updates will add more details and could even restate some of the financial information detailed in Wednesday’s filing.

In this initial paperwork, companies don’t declare how many shares they’re going to sell, or how much those shares will cost. Those details will be added in an updated filing shortly before trading begins.

Without that share price information, Facebook’s valuation is still speculative.

Facebook has its own guesses, though. The company said it conducted its own valuation of its stock at the end of each quarter, and as of December 31 determined it to be worth $29.73 a share.

Zuckerberg’s letter to investors: ‘Hacker Way’

Revenue breakdown: Advertising accounted for 85% of Facebook’s 2011 revenue, or almost $3.2 billion.

Facebook’s other revenue stream is its payment system for purchases within apps and games: Facebook Credits. Facebook keeps 30% of the revenue from those payments, and passes the remaining 70% on to the app developer.

Those fees brought in $557 million for Facebook last year.

Revenue from Zynga, which makes FarmVille and other games played on Facebook, represented 12% of Facebook’s total revenue in 2011.

About 44% of Facebook’s revenue came from overseas last year, compared with 38% in 2010 and 33% in 2009.

As of December 31, Facebook had $3.9 billion in cash and liquid assets.

Exec compensation: Another choice tidbit: In 2011, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg raked in a $500,000 base salary. But he requested — and will receive — only $1 per year in salary starting January 1, 2013.

Don’t feel too bad for Zuck, who remains the largest shareholder in the company he created. His total compensation in 2011 came to $1.48 million, according to Facebook’s calculations.

He was one of the lowest-paid among Facebook’s executive ranks. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg topped the list with a total package Facebook estimated at $30.9 million, almost all of it in stock.

Engineering VP Mike Schroepfer made an estimated $24.7 million — again, mostly in stock — while CFO David Ebersman collected an $18.7 million pay package. (For more on Ebersman, see Fortune’s profile: "The man behind the Facebook IPO.")

As far as the regular rank-and-file at Facebook, the company had 3,200 full-time employees as of December 31. That was a 50% increase from the previous year, and Facebook said it "expect[s] this growth to continue for the foreseeable future."

Facebook also noted that it has bought out some small companies mainly to acquire employees, and said that it intends to continue that strategy.

How much Facebook is worth: Trading won’t begin for several months, as Facebook now has to field questions from regulators and court investors for its stock sale.

Most analysts estimate Facebook’s valuation will fall somewhere between $85 billion to $100 billion. But the value of Web companies can be extremely volatile.

A recent example: Zynga (). The FarmVille maker’s IPO filing reported that it valued its shares in August 2011 at $17.20 each, which gave the company a valuation of $14 billion. But when Zynga went public in December, shares sold for just $10 — valuing the company at $7 billion.

Several other Internet companies made their public debuts in 2011, but the end of the year proved to be a turbulent time for the sector. Shares of Groupon (), Pandora (), Zillow (), LinkedIn () and Angie’s List () all suffered steep double-digit losses for November, though most clawed back at least a bit in December or January. 

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Cass Informations Systems reported fourth-quarter net income of $5.5 million, or 53 cents per share, compared with $5.1 milllion, or 48 cents per share, in the corresponding period of 2010.

For the year, Cass–a Bridgeton-based provider of invoice payment and information services–reported record net income of $23 million, or $2.21 per share, compared with $20.3 million, or $1.95 per share, in 2010.

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The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it will not raise interest rates until at least late 2014, even later than investors expected, in an effort to support a sluggish economic recovery.

Without making major shifts to its outlook for the economy, the central bank described the unemployment rate as still elevated and said it expects inflation to remain at levels consistent with stable prices.

It depicted business investment as having slowed, dowgrading its assessment from the December meeting.

Economic conditions “are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through late 2014,” the central bank said in a statement.

Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, an inflation hawk who rotated into a voting seat this year, dissented against the decision. He preferred to omit the description of the time period for ultra-low rates.

As part of an effort to provide more insight on its thinking to financial markets and the public, the Fed later on Wednesday will begin publishing individual policymakers’ projections for the appropriate path of the benchmark federal funds rate. That release is scheduled for 2 p.m. (1900 GMT)

If the Fed can convince financial markets it will be on hold longer than they had anticipated, long-term interest rates could drop as investors price in the new information.

“A significant contingent of the committee views this exercise not so much as a process improvement but more as an opportunity to ease again via the forward rate communications channel,” Stephen Stanley, an economist at Pierpoint Securities, said ahead of the Fed’s announcement.

There is also the possibility that officials will announce an explicit inflation target, perhaps a hard marker of 2 percent or a range of 2 percent or a bit below guaranteed online personal loans. The Fed has been debating a statement on its long-run goals, but whether one will be released on Wednesday is unclear.

While forecasters expect the U.S. economy grew at a 3 percent annual rate in the last three months of 2011, they look for growth of just around 2 percent this year.

Fed officials appear likely to bide their time in determining whether more monetary stimulus is needed. Many economists expect they will eventually decide on another spurt of Fed bond buying - probably one focused on mortgage debt.

In response to the deepest recession in generations, the Fed slashed the overnight federal funds rate to near zero in December 2008. It has also more than tripled the size of its balance sheet to around $2.9 trillion through two separate bond purchase programs.

The policy is credited with having prevented an even more devastating downturn, but it has been insufficient to bring unemployment down to levels considered normal during good economic times.

In December, the U.S. jobless rate stood at 8.5 percent, and some 13 million Americans were still actively looking for work but could not find it.

Analysts said the Fed’s shift in communications will put an even greater emphasis on a post-meeting news conference by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke set for 2:15 p.m. (1915 GMT).

“The chairman is likely to remain non-committal to any additional policy easing, but he is likely to reinforce the Fed’s commitment to ‘review the size and composition of its securities holdings’ and be ‘prepared to adjust those holdings as appropriate,’” said Millan Mulraine, senior macro strategist at TD Securities.

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Nigerian oil union Pengassan said it will only shut down oil output as

China will take measure to stabilize its exports and imports as slowing global growth creates a

Many non-stop flights from Europe to the U.S. aren’t: Unusually high winds are forcing airlines flying west across the Atlantic to make unscheduled stops to take on more fuel.

The conditions are causing inconveniences to fliers who are often missing connections once they land, costing the airlines money to rebook or otherwise compensate their customers.

United Continental Holdings (, Fortune 500), which is operating under both the United Airlines and Continental Airlines brands as it moves to complete its merger, said it diverted 43 out of 1,100 flights in December using the Boeing (, Fortune 500) 757 jet flying from Europe to the United States. A year earlier it only had to divert 12 flights.

Company spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said the winds were typically 30 knots in December the previous decade, but they averaged 47 knots last month, with half the month averaging 60 knots.

The unusually high winds and the flight diversions have continued in the first 11 days of January, she said, although she did not have any statistics.

Other airlines have also been affected. AMR () unit American Airlines said it has happened occasionally on the trans-Atlantic routes on which it uses the 757, although it could not provide statistics.

McCarthy does not have any estimates on costs to the airlines from the high winds, but said most of the costs have been associated with payments to customers free 3-in-1 credit report.

"We have been offering compensation as a gesture of good will when circumstances merit," she said.

The eastbound flights are saving fuel due to the unusually strong tail winds. The high winds have also been associated with an unusually mild start to winter in the United States, which has saved the airlines money as well.

The planes typically land at Gander and Goose Bay in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. But other fueling stops have been made in Iceland, Ireland, Nova Scotia, Albany, N.Y., and even Stewart International Airport, only 60 miles north of New York City.

Some larger planes have a longer range and are not having to make as many extra stops to refuel. But the 757, which holds about 169 passengers, is common on trans-Atlantic flights.

McCarthy said it has been used for years by both Continental and United, and was not something that was introduced on the routes as a result of the recent merger of the two carriers. 

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Home prices fell for a fourth straight month in November as distressed sales continued to weigh on prices, data analysis firm CoreLogic said on Monday.

CoreLogic’s (CLGX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) home price index fell 1.4 percent in November from the previous month. Compared with November of last year, prices were down 4.3 percent, steeper than the 3.7 percent year-over-year decline seen in October.

Excluding distressed sales, prices were off just 0.6 percent in November on a yearly basis. Homeowners in danger of foreclosure, or in “distress,” often sell their homes at a significantly reduced price Payday Loan for Bad Credit.

“Distressed sales continue to put downward pressure on prices and is a factor that must be addressed in 2012 for a housing recovery to become a reality,” Mark Fleming, chief economist at CoreLogic, said in a statement.

Of the top 100 statistical areas measured by population, 77 showed year-over-year declines, down from 80 in October.

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+%3Cp%3EEuropean+Central+Bank+President+Mario+Draghi+said+there+is+no+%93external+savior%94+for+countries+that+don%92t+implement+structural+reforms+to+restore+confidence+to+debt+markets.+%3C%2Fp%3E+%3Cp%3E%93There+is+no+external+savior+for+a+country+that+doesn%92t+want+to+save+itself%2C%94+Draghi+said+in+a+speech+in+Berlin+today.+%93I+will+never+tire+of+saying+the+first+response+should+come+from+the+countries.%94+%3C%2Fp%3E+%3Cp%3EThe+ECB+is+buying+the+bonds+of+debt-strapped+nations+such+as+Italy+and+Spain+after+they+agreed+to+implement+austerity+measures+to+improve+their+finances.+Draghi+nevertheless+reiterated+today+that+the+ECB%92s+bond+program+is+%93neither+eternal+nor+infinite.%94+%3C%2Fp%3E+%3Cp%3EHe+said+an+%93unavoidable%94+short-term+economic+contraction+in+the+euro+area+may+be+mitigated+by+a+return+of+confidence+if+governments+implement+budget+consolidation+plans.+%3C%2Fp%3E+%3Cp%3E%93In+the+medium+term%2C+sustainable+growth+can+be+achieved+only+by+undertaking+deep+structural+reforms+that+have+been+procrastinated+for+too+long%2C%94+he+said.+%3C%2Fp%3E+Bank+Measures++%3Cp%3EWhile+the+ECB+has+pushed+back+against+calls+for+it+to+step+up+its+bond+purchases%2C+Draghi+said+measures+taken+last+week+to+give+banks+greater+access+to+liquidity+will+soon+be+felt.+%3C%2Fp%3E+%3Cp%3EOn+Dec.+8%2C+the+ECB+established+refinancing+operations+with+a+maturity+of+three+years%2C+allowed+banks+to+use+their+own+loans+as+collateral%2C+and+cut+the+required+reserves+ratio+to+1+percent+from+2+percent.+%3C%2Fp%3E+%3Cp%3E%93The+current+package+should+be+felt+tangibly+in+the+financial+sector+and+the+real+economy+over+the+coming+months%2C%94+Draghi+said.+%3C%2Fp%3E+%3Cp%3EHe+said+banks+face+%93headwinds%94+as+they+try+to+meet+new+Europe-wide+capital+ratios.+%3C%2Fp%3E+%3Cp%3E%93The+plan+to+strengthen+their+capital+bases+is+an+attempt+to+reinforce+their+standing+in+financial+markets%2C+but+this+is+not+an+easy+process%2C%94+he+said.+%93Raising+capital+levels+is+expensive+in+a+depressed+market+and+faces+resistance+from+shareholders.+Selling+assets+is+less+preferable+and+curtailing+credit+to+the+real+economy+is+even+worse.%94+%3C%2Fp%3E+%3Cp%3EBanks+should+consider+restraining+dividends+and+ad+hoc+compensation+to+strengthen+buffers%2C+Draghi+said.+%3C%2Fp%3E++%3Cp%3E%3Ca+href%3D%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2F2011-12-15%2Fdraghi-says-there-s-no-external-savior-for-euro-countries-that-fail-to-act.html%27+rel%3D%27nofollow%27%3ESource%3C%2Fa%3E%3C%2Fp%3E+

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner got little down time during his three-day dash through Europe. But what sleep he did get was in some of Europe’s finest hotels.

U.S. officials justify the luxurious bookings by explaining that where Geithner stays is often dictated by security concerns. The U.S. embassy in each country recommends hotels considered acceptable for overnight stays by high-level government officials like Geithner who get Secret Service protection.

In Milan, the hotel of choice for Geithner’s stay was the Hotel Principe di Savoia. It’s a five-star hotel graced by a grand foyer.

The top-of-the line Presidential Suite was featured in the 2010 movie “Somewhere” by director Sofia Coppola. The movie, set in Milan, also displayed the hotel’s opulent swimming pool.

Geithner’s digs were far less plush than the “Somewhere” suite _ just a standard room with a sitting area for meetings. And instead of a swim, he began his day in the hotel exercise room, walking on the treadmill while reading the morning newspapers.

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To meet with national leaders and financial officials in five cities in three countries in three days, you need a little help getting around. That’s where a police-escorted motorcade comes in handy.

Geithner’s caravan of limousines and vans for staff and reporters drew police escorts in each city he visited.

It all worked well until Geithner’s entourage hit Marseilles right at rush hour. The road from the airport to a downtown hotel where Geithner was meeting Spanish Prime Minister-elect Mariano Rajoy Brey was jammed.

Still, not to worry. The motorcycle escorts simply squeezed between the two lanes of cars headed into town. The cars were forced to both sides of the road, clearing a path in the middle for the motorcade.

Geithner’s meeting Wednesday night lasted about 40 minutes. Then it was back to the motorcade for the return to the airport. At least by then, the roads had cleared considerably, and the motorcycle escort had less work to do guaranteed payday loans.

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So much for legendary German efficiency. On Geithner’s three-country trip, it was the Italians who shined most in arranging a glitch-free meeting with reporters. The Germans and French ran into more difficulty.

Of course, the Italians had arguably more at stake. Geithner’s appearance with reporters in Milan on Thursday followed a meeting with new Prime Minister Mario Monti. By contrast, the sessions in Germany and France involved only finance ministers.

The Italians managed to position a crush of journalists and 15 television cameras well before the session began.

In France, Geithner and Finance Minister Francois Baroin made statements to the press in Baroin’s office. The French supplied no translator. After the session, non-French-speaking journalists found a kindly official who translated Baroin’s remarks by listening to a tape recording of it.

In Germany, reporters, TV crews and photographers crammed near a stage in the German Finance Ministry. Reporters had no chairs and instead crouched on the floor with laptops. When officials decided to move the crowd back and supply chairs, shouting and jostling erupted as photographers struggled to keep the prime positions they’d staked out.

Still, from reporters’ vantage point, the Germans fared best in one key respect: Alone among officials in the three countries, they allowed at least a couple of questions from journalists.

The French and Italian events were designed to have Geithner, Baroin and Monti give statements but take no questions. Given the sensitivity of the markets to Europe’s debt crisis, officials in France and Italy probably didn’t want to risk having an answer (or non-answer) to a question panic investors.

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Sale, schmale.

Used to be, customers would come running when stores cut prices. But these days, more Americans are becoming blase about bargains.

Jennifer Beasley recently left a Toys R Us in Cary, N.C., unimpressed by the retailer’s offers that day of 50 percent discounts on things like a $150 Sylvania tablet computer and a $45 My Baby Alive Doll.

“The sales just aren’t as good this year,” says Beasley, 30, who has three children. “It’s almost not worth getting up.”

People have been shopping more than ever this holiday season, largely because of a flood of sales. But Americans have become so used to deep discounts that they expect each sale to be bigger and better than the last. That means retailers will likely have to keep slashing prices, which could hurt their bottom line.

“I think they’re going to have to continue to do the kind of `come on’ pricing that you saw on Black Friday,” or the day after Thanksgiving, says Alison Paul, head of consulting firm Deloitte’s U.S. retail practice.

Merchants already are rolling out big holiday sales. The Body Shop is letting customers spin a wheel of chance to win different discounts, including offers of “buy three, get three.” The Gap is selling many of its pajamas, kids’ hoodies and men’s cardigans for 50 percent off. And Target has Barbie, Thomas the Tank Engine and many of its other toy brands for “buy one, get one half off.”

But shoppers are yawning at deals that once excited them.

“The ads and the sales _ I think it’s all hype,” says Karen Finch of Gresham, Ore., who is waiting to buy a tablet for her son until closer to Christmas Day because she thinks the discounts on Amazon.com _ 48 percent off a $500 Blackberry version, for instance _ aren’t good enough. “There’s no substance.”

To be sure, consumers’ perceptions of deals don’t always jibe with reality. Most retailers decline to discuss their pricing strategy because of competitive reasons, but research by analysts at Jefferies & Co. and other firms found that many deals this year are as good as _ if not better than _ last year’s.

For instance, American Eagle offered 40 percent off everything all day on Black Friday _ better than the 20 percent off until noon that it offered for the past two years, according to Jefferies analysts. The average discount at Best Buy on Black Friday was almost 45 percent, up from about 34 percent last year. The average discount at Wal-Mart was about 47 percent, better than last year’s average of 43 percent.

And anyway, what shoppers say and do often are two different things. Consumers told Deloitte in September that they planned to spend about 5 percent less on Christmas this year. But the reality so far is different: Americans spent $52.4 billion over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the highest total ever recorded for that period and 16 percent greater than last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

“You can’t always listen to what they say,” says Allen Adamson, managing director at the branding company Landor Associates. “What counts is what they do at checkout.”

Indeed, Atty Zschau of Portland, Ore., has been disappointed with the holiday sales she’s seen so far this year. But instead of going home empty-handed on Black Friday, she shelled out $800 _ full price _ for a Dell laptop that will be shared among her family.

“We’re normally `deal’ people,” says Zschau, an acupuncturist. But, “All the stuff that was on sale was not what we wanted.”

The discontent with discounts comes at a time when many Americans are struggling with job losses and stagnant wages. Many shoppers simply have less money to spend this holiday season: The median U.S. household income was $49,445 last year, down from $50,303 two years before.

And deals just don’t seem as good if the iPad tablet computer you want is still outside of your budget. A $1,000 TV marked down 20 percent might seem like a good deal for a shopper who has $800 to spend. But it’s not such a fab find for someone with only $700 in his pocket.

“Discounts are supposed to mean, `I can get it,’” says Michael Norton, a Harvard Business School professor specializing in consumer psychology. “So if you can’t get it, it doesn’t feel like a very good discount.”

Cost-conscious shoppers also have a long memory about the better sales they’ve seen in the last few years, says Alison Jatlow Levy, retail strategist with consulting firm Kurt Salmon. For instance, teen retailer Aeropostale offered discounts on Black Friday of 50 percent off everything and another 20 percent off until mid-afternoon. But that may not have been enough for Aeropostale shoppers who remember that the chain slashed prices up to 70 percent all day in previous years.

“Customers probably remember that last year things were 60 percent off, and this year maybe they’re only 25 or 40 percent off,” Levy says of some store discounts. “But those things probably weren’t 60 percent off until closer to Christmas.”

Rebecca Walden of Birmingham, Ala., learned that lesson the hard way. Last year, she and her husband stayed up late on Thanksgiving night buying Christmas gifts online for their daughter, who was then one-years-old. They were patting themselves on the back about the discounts of 10 to 20 percent off they got on toys like a rocking horse, a play kitchen and a set of 150 building blocks. That is, until they found many of those same items on sale for half off later in the season.

Walden, 33, decided not to repeat that mistake. So she’s done virtually none of her Christmas shopping yet. She’s waiting it out for a deal on a few items, like a sale on a Wiggles guitar, which generally runs at least $65.

“I’m not convinced they’ve hit rock-bottom prices yet and Christmas is still several weeks away,” Walden says. “I think the phrase is `playing chicken.’”

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Sarah Skidmore reported from Portland, Ore. Christina Rexrode reported from New York.

Follow AP retail coverage at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Retail.

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