Zynga CEO Looks to Sell Stake

News emerged on Friday that Zynga ZNGA Mark Pincus is planning on selling 43 million Class A shares, massively increasing the social-gaming company's public float. According to the Wall Street Journal, ZNGA will not receive any proceeds from the offering, which the company filed for last week, although it did not disclose any details at that time. If the offering does go through, there will be 164.4 million Class A shares outstanding. That means that the 43 million shares represents a 15% stake in the company. Zynga is looking to sell stock as it looks to reduce future volatility of the company's stock price, although that sounds suspiciously like a desperate company line. The CEO's proceeds from the sale would be $228 million, which seems to be a more valid reason. Pincus plans on selling 19% of his Class B shares, or 17.3 million of the 43 million available. Class B shares will convert to Class A when sold. Despite making a lot of money from the deal, Pincus's voting stake would still only drop to 35.9% from 36.5%, as he would remain the sole holder of Class C share. Class C shares have 70 times the voting power of Class A. On Thursday, Wedbush published a research report stating that Zynga remains well-positioned for long-term growth. The company is expected to grow revenues in 2012 due to multiple social game releases, continued expansion on smart phone platforms (accelerated by the OMGPOP acquisition), and the launch of Zynga.com. “We believe that many investors are under the misperception that revenues track growth in monthly active users and daily active users; we believe that revenues from Zynga's games grow over the first year or more, notwithstanding the inevitable attrition of MAUs and DAUs.” Piper Jaffray reported that Zynga announced the acquisition of OMGPOP, the maker of "Draw Something" (a.k.a. Draw). “We estimate OMGPOP is on pace to generate $40m to $50m in annual bookings, implying a 4x to 5x EV/bookings multiple. We believe M&A is the right choice in OMGPOP's unique case.”