Online gaming company Zynga Inc. to go public

12/3/2011
BLADE STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES

NEW YORK -- Hoping to harvest some fresh cash, the online game company behind FarmVille said Friday it plans to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering of up to 100 million shares.

Zynga Inc. is the latest in a spate of IPOs by Internet companies this year, ranging from professional networking service LinkedIn Corp. to the online deals site Groupon Inc.

They're all precursors to Facebook Inc.'s public debut expected sometime after April next year.

Facebook could fetch as much as $10 billion in its offering.

Zynga, whose games are played mainly on Facebook, plans to sell its shares at $8.50 to $10 each.

If the shares are priced at $10, Zynga will be valued at $7 billion based on the number of its total shares.