The biggest social networking service in the world, Facebook Inc. has announced the creation of a unique dual-class stock structure that has been out into place to ensure that, the owners of Facebook retain control over the company. Even though Facebook has repeatedly stated that, it has no plans of offering an IPO to the public investors, still experts speculate that this latest move on the part of Facebook might just point towards a future public offering.

The dual stock structure brought into Facebook has already seen the light if day, when it was employed in Google Inc., before the company went public in the year 2004. The dual mode was designed and implemented by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to ensure that they retain the majority of voting rights in their company. Furthermore, as of the founders of Google and CEO, Eric Schmidt hold a lot more voting power than the others members of Google.

Facebook has stated that, the decision to bring in dual stock structure was implemented to make sure that the existing shareholders retain maximum voting powers in the case of company decisions. According to Scott Kessler (Equity Analyst, Standard & Poor),

“Creating a class of shares with more voting power and keeping those shares in the hands of founders and employees can potentially allow a company to take more risks even at the expense of short-term investors.”

Facebook laid its foundations in the year 2004 with more than 300 million users worldwide and has till date acquired an astounding $600 million form its investors. One of the most prominent and substantial investments made in Facebook came very recently in the form of $200 million from the Russian investor, Digital Sky Technologies.

Via Associated Press.