Facebook is getting one step closer to becoming a publicly-traded company, with the social networking powerhouse today disclosing in a SEC filing that it intends to sell shares in the price range of $28 to $35 per share. The deal would value the company between $77 billion and $96 billion, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s stake coming in at $18.7 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

That’s just shy of Amazon.com’s stock value, which as of Thursday afternoon stood at $103 billion. The stock could generate as much as $13 billion for the company.

The IPO is one of the most highly-anticipated offerings of the year. Facebook now has more than 900 million active users, a 33 percent increase over the same period last year.

Microsoft remains a small shareholder in Facebook, dating back to a $240 million investment it made in the company five years ago that gave it a 1.7 percent stake. Facebook also recently agreed to purchase 615 patents from Microsoft for $550 million, part of a portfolio that Microsoft acquired from AOL last month for $1 billion.

Nonetheless, despite that cozy relationship, Facebook still lists Microsoft as a potential competitor in its SEC filing.

“We face significant competition in almost every aspect of our business, including from companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Twitter, which offer a variety of Internet products, services, content, and online advertising offerings, as well as from mobile companies and smaller Internet companies that offer products and services that may compete with specific Facebook features,” the company wrote in its filing.

Facebook also just opened a new office in Seattle with room for as many as 170 employees. It had a total of 3,539 employees at the end of March.

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