Facebook to Free 60% More Shares

Social media giant Facebook

announced Thursday that it is to free up 271.1 million shares, which increases the trading number by 60 percent. Since Facebook's IPO, analysts have become increasingly concerned by the company's poor showing. However, the timing of this announcement is slightly odd considering the fact that the

. Over the next nine months, around 1.91 billion shares will be freed up for trading, compared to the current 500 million that are freely traded. The looming expiration of lockups is a major concern for investors. They are worried that the price of the stock could fall even further on heavy selling from early investors that have been prohibited from selling Facebook stock since the company's May 17 Initial Public Offering (IPO). Analyst Herman Leung at Susquehanna International Group told Bloomberg, “It's one of the No. 1 issues on investors' minds right now. Even the investors that I talk to who want to buy the stock and like the company are not sure if they can stomach the lockups.” On Monday,

. According to an SEC filing, Hastings acquired 47,846 shares at a price of $21.03 each, costing the Netflix CEO just over $1 million. Hastings' investment gave Facebook a minor boost on Friday. Facebook shares traded up more than two percent Monday morning, as investors continue to buy into the social networking giant. While the company has had a number of problems since its IPO, including

, Facebook continues to be one of the strongest tech companies in the world. Still, Facebook investors like DST Global, Goldman Sachs, Elevation Partners and Accel Partners got the go-ahead to start selling holdings on Thursday. According to

, those sales could mean that Facebook has to work harder to convince investors that it deserves a higher valuation. The shares that have been freed up are worth roughly $5.75 billion based on Wednesday's closing price. On Thursday, Facebook traded at about $21.20, up roughly 4 percent.