Facebook Share Buyer GSV Files To Raise More Capital (GSVC)

GSV Capital Corporation (NASDAQ: GSVC) is a regulated business development company which many investors still are unaware of.  That may change now that the BDC has filed to raise more capital and now that it has entered into purchase agreements for shares of Facebook and other well known pre-IPO companies.  Shares are getting hit on news that GSV plans to raise up to $100 million more in new share sales.  When that will come is anyone’s guess because the company has not even listed any of the underwriters.

GSV came public as NeXt Innovation Corp. with only 3,335,000 shares of common stock at $15.00 per share in late-April before changing its name and making some key announcements.  Ladenburg Thalmann and Lazard Capital Markets were the joint book-running managers; National Securities was the lead manager; and co-managers were Maxim Group, Merriman Capital, Northland Capital Markets, Rodman & Renshaw, Aegis Capital, Anderson & Strudwick, and Newbridge Securities.

On June 27, 2011, GSV announced that it had acquired 225,000 shares in social-networking giant Facebook.  The average price per share was $29.28 and the total investment was about $6.59 million.

Just last week came word that GSV had acquired more shares of other companies: Bloom Energy, Chegg, Gilt Groupe, Silver Spring Networks and Serious Energy.  The combined investments was roughly $7.8 million.

While most of GSV’s holdings and investments are not among our Top 17 IPOs for 2011, some are and many might be if we reworked that list after so many have come public.

Michael Moe, co-founder of ThinkEquity, is the chairman and CEO of GSV Capital.

We do have one word that we cannot leave out here.  A recent Seidman study showed that many investment bankers are growing cautious and wary of the pre-IPO valuations that the secondary markets are creating.

GSV Capital shares are down 6% at $18.20 on the news today and the 52-week trading range is $9.75 to $19.97.

JON C. OGG