Twitter has taken the cover off its initial public offering, making public its prospectus and setting the clock on one of the most anticipated stock sales of the year, Vindu Goel and Michael J. de la Merced report.

Twitter’s prospectus — whose filing was initially disclosed in a 135-character post on its own service last month — offers the fullest look yet at the privately held company. But while its growth is as high as had been anticipated in some ways, the document reflects a company that is still relatively small compared to its rivals.

Based on an internal valuation of its shares from Aug. 5, Twitter is worth about $9.7 billion.

In its second quarter this year, Twitter reported 218.3 million average monthly active users, up 44 percent from the same time a year. Its revenue for the first half of this year was $253.6 million, more than double the same time last year.

The company has also been losing money, reporting a net loss of $79 million last year and $69 million for the first six months of 2013. Even after adjusting for stock option compensation and other items like depreciation, Twitter has still reported steady losses.

The social network disclosed that it plans to use the ticker symbol “TWTR,” but didn’t specify a stock exchange. It also listed a $1 billion fund-raising target, a pro forma number meant to calculate listing fees.

With the regulatory filing late on Thursday, Twitter now has about three weeks until it kicks off a road show to potential investors across the country, in what is expected to be a series of standing-room-only meetings.

Source: Bits