Facebook delays plan on employee stock sale: report
(Reuters) - Social networking company Facebook is delaying a previously announced plan to let employees sell part of their stocks, due to difficult global economy, the Wall Street Journal said.
In an email to employees on Thursday Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said the stock sale plan, which was proposed in August, was not proceeding as scheduled, the report said.
"After carefully considering the current environment, we've decided to establish an open-ended time table for an employee stock sale program," the newspaper quoted the email as saying.
The privately-held company plans to revisit whether to go ahead based on market conditions, the Journal said citing a person familiar with the matter.
Facebook could not be immediately reached for comment.
Under the share sale plan, Facebook employees would have been allowed to sell a portion of their shares vested by November 1 at around a $4 billion company valuation, the report said.
Last year, Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) took a $240 million stake in Facebook, which valued the start-up at $15 billion.
(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Kazunori Takada)
