Twitter IPO More Expensive Than Facebook Without Profits: Tech

Twitter Inc. is poised to price its initial public offering at a valuation that makes it more expensive than Facebook Inc., a profitable rival with five times as many users.

Twitter yesterday boosted its IPO price to $23 to $25 a share, which would give the microblogging service a market capitalization of $13.6 billion at the top end of the range. That would value the company at 11.8 times its estimated 2014 sales, higher than the 11.4 times price-to-sales ratio for Facebook. San Francisco-based Twitter is already several times oversubscribed at $25 a share and is set for a final offering price above that, people familiar with the situation said.