The summer of 2011 is shaping up to be the season of the tech IPO. The past three weeks have seen the initial public offerings of LinkedIn and Yandex, Groupon’s S-1 filing, and S-1 updates from Kayak and Pandora, to name just a few. And according to a report published today by Bloomberg, social gaming giant Zynga is next in line for its stock market debut.
Zynga is in the final stages of negotiations with investment bank Goldman Sachs to lead its IPO, according to the Bloomberg report, which cites an anonymous source with knowledge of the situation. The Goldman mandate is expected to be finalized Friday, and Zynga is reportedly looking to file its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission by the end of June.
Zynga is also looking to Goldman Sachs to provide the company with a line of credit worth more than $ 1 billion that Zynga plans to put toward acquisitions, the report said.
When reached by GigaOM, a Zynga spokesperson declined to comment on the company’s IPO or debt-raising plans.
Zynga has been growing at an even faster clip than usual of late, having made at least six acquisitions since the start of 2011. Companies often engage in aggressive bulk-up behavior in the run up to an IPO, so Zynga’s heavy M&A activity and product expansion could indicate the IPO rumors are rooted in fact. The public market has shown a healthy appetite for Internet stocks, and Zynga, which is profitable and said to be on track to make $ 1.8 billion in revenue for 2011, has good reason to believe that now is the time to try to hit the public markets.
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