Yes, business journalists are geeks. We get excited reading Securities and Exchange Commission filings and waiting for a company’s earnings release.
That’s why the amended S-1 filed Thursday by Zynga Inc. for its initial public offering should warm the cockles of the Bloomberg News reporter who wrote this story.
The filing, on p. 18, included the following disclosure from the San Francisco-based company:
On December 12, 2011, Bloomberg News reported in an article that Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of Google Inc., one of our stockholders, had said with respect to Mark Pincus, our founder and chief executive officer, “he is a we’re-going-to-make-this-happen-or-else type of person” and “he is a fearsome, strong negotiator.” The article also stated “Pincus often gets his way with other companies as well, said Google’s Schmidt. In the summer of 2009, Pincus was seeking a partnership that led to Google buying a 3 percent stake in Zynga. When Pincus came to the negotiating table, he knew more about the proposed deal than everyone on the Google side of the table combined, according to Schmidt.” Google has agreed to sell shares of our Class A common stock in this offering if the over-allotment option the selling stockholders have granted to the underwriters is exercised. The statements regarding Mr. Pincus should not be taken in isolation, but should be read together with the risks and uncertainties described in this prospectus. You should make your investment decision only after reading this entire prospectus carefully.
Read the full filing here. The Bloomberg story, written by Douglas MacMillan, that caused the amended filing can be read here.
