The social networking giant Facebook Inc. will likely go public in the first quarter of 2012, with a valuation that could top $100 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, CNBC reported.

A factor in the timing of the company’s initial public offering is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s requirement that some companies such as Facebook must disclose financial information if they have more than 500 private investors.

The social media company will likely report that it has crossed that threshold at the end of year, according to these same people, CNBC said.
Facebook is also facing internal pressure from current employees who, because of internal restrictions, cannot sell their private shares on the secondary market, CNBC said.

SharesPost, a private exchange that buys shares of non-public companies, last sold 100,000 shares of Facebook for $3.4 million, which put the company’s valuation at $85 billion.

General Atlantic LLC, a $17 billion investment firm, bought one tenth of one percent in the social networking site in March, in a deal that valued the company at $65 billion.

This came just weeks after a large investment in Facebook, organized on behalf of its clients by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was $1.5 billion, which valued Facebook at $50 billion, meaning that in the intervening six weeks the company’s value had apparently grown by another 30 percent.