Facebook will set a target of raising $5 billion in papers to be filed on Wednesday for an initial public offering. The New York Times and International Financing Review said $5 billion is only a preliminary target, and the final size could be larger. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook would seek to raise $10 billion at a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion. At $5 billion, it would be the largest IPO ever by an Internet company, topping Google's in 2004 which raised $1.9 billion and valued the company at $23 billion.

Facebook is expected to file its IPO this week, which could set several records if the company is valued at $75bn- $100bn. A $10 billion Facebook offering would rank fourth among IPOs for U.S. companies, behind Visa Inc., General Motors Co. and AT&T Wireless.  It would also rank Facebook as the biggest U.S. Internet offering ever, replacing Google Inc., which raised $1.9 billion in 2004 at a $23 billion valuation. At a $100 billion valuation, Facebook would be worth about the same as McDonald's Corp.

Facebook plans to file documents for its highly anticipated IPO on Wednesday. This will value the world's largest social network at $75bn- $100bn. Facebook's revenue is driven by its advertising business, as brands have rushed to the site to interact with consumers through display ads and fan pages. The online social networking giant has been able to increase its world-wide advertising revenue from $738m in 2009 to $3.8bn in 2011.