Is Facebook really worth $15bn?

Microsoft has just paid $240m for a 1.6% stake in social networking site, Facebook. Eight years on from the tech bubble, Merryn Somerset Webb thinks markets are being taken in by a good story once again.

Tidying out a few drawers of papers with the help of some toddlers at the weekend I came across a fascinating piece of paper. It was the notes to go with the invitation to the Paribas (now BNP Paribas) Christmas party in 1999, when I was working there as a stockbroker. There are all sorts of interesting bits and bobs in the memo, but the thing that really struck me was the list of prizes on offer in the grand prize draw (to be held after the dinner at the Grosvenor House hotel).

The top prize was a "personal fax machine worth £600". Think about that for a second. The memo was issued in November 1999. That was when the tech bubble was reaching its absolute peak internet stocks rose more than 60% from October 1999 to March 2000 alone.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.