MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. —Facebook’s stock plunge has robbed Goldman Sachs and Microsoft of much of the potential gain they could unlock as soon as this week, when a ban on sales of insiders’ shares begins to lift.
While the end of the lockup has the potential to put additional pressure on the stock price, owners such as Goldman Sachs, which now has a stake worth about $900 million, face a dilemma: whether to sell now and realize a smaller profit or sit tight and risk further losses.
“It’s not as if they have to sell all their holdings the moment the market opens,” said Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research Group, who rates the stock a buy.
Still, over the coming nine months, about 1.91 billion shares will be freed up, compared with fewer than 500 million now available for trading. That flood of shares is a deterrent for some potential buyers, said Herman Leung, an analyst at Susquehanna International Group, said.
