Twitter sets IPO price range at $17 to $20 a share

SAN FRANCISCO -- Twitter priced its hotly anticipated initial public offering at $17 a share to $20 a share on Thursday in a deal that could value the company at up to $11 billion.

Twitter said it would sell 70 million shares. If those are sold, the underwriters can buy another 10.5 million shares.

In all, the San Francisco company could raise as much as $1.6 billion.

The price range is lower than Twitter’s most recent prices on the secondary market. Shares there were trading at between $26 and $28. Twitter issued shares for restricted stock units in August for $20.62.

Now that Twitter has set the price range, it can begin pitching the deal to investors.

Twitter could hit the road to shop the IPO as soon as Monday. It’s during the road show that investors request how many shares they want and at what price.

The company will probably face a tougher crowd than Facebook did. Among the challenges confronting Twitter: whether it can stanch losses and turn a profit and whether it can continue to grow in popularity with users.

Published reports say Twitter is aiming to price its offering on Nov. 6 and begin trading the following day. Twitter will trade under the ticker symbol “TWTR” on the New York Stock Exchange.

Twitter officially filed its IPO documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month. At the time, it used $1 billion as a placeholder.

Twitter filed its plans for an IPO confidentially under the JOBS Act in July. It made that filing public in early October.

ALSO:

Twitter drawing on lessons learned from Facebook IPO

Twitter taps NBC’s Vivian Schiller as head of news partnerships

Twitter IPO hurdle: The service is well known but now widely used