Who's to Blame for Botched Facebook IPO?

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- I was at CNBC in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. last Friday when Facebook(FB_) had its initial public offering.

The tension in the room among producers was palpable as the IPO was delayed for half an hour.

Then, suddenly, it opened. The stock quickly jumped to almost $45. There were whoops and clapping atCNBC. People were excited.

However, within 10 minutes, something strange happened. The stock started to fall. It was one long, continuous slide back down to $38, where the underwriters defended it for the rest of the day.

That day, on business TV, the Facebook blame game started. Whose fault was it?

I couldn't have imagined that outcome a few short hours before. I woke up around 6 a.m. that Friday. When I turned on "Squawk Box," there was a sense of excitement similar to the Superbowl for business media. Later that day, people focused on Nasdaq (NDAQ_)and its technical problems. Next, people started pointing fingers at Morgan Stanley (MS_) for retaining too much control over the offering.

Yet, Morgan Stanley was the lead bank behind the most successful social media in the last two years:LinkedIn (LNKD_).

In contrast to Facebook, which sold 421 million shares in the IPO, LinkedIn sold 7 million shares. Did Michael Grimes give bad advice to Facebook and good advice to LinkedIn?

Unlikely.

If Morgan Stanley wasn't the problem, who was? Facebook management, which is to say, Mark Zuckerberg

Read the full post in TheStreet

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