Wall Street IPO-tweet-stakes have begun.
Banks already are lining up to score the plum assignment of leading Twitter’s hotly anticipated public offering, The Post has learned.
The $10 billion social-messaging platform has held informal talks with Wall Street firms — the first step toward an IPO that could come in the next several months, sources said.
“Rumblings around Twitter are getting louder,” said one bank official.
Bankers have met with Twitter’s management in recent weeks for preliminary talks ahead of a more formal selection process to pick underwriters to lead the IPO, sources tell The Post.
JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America, Credit Suisse and others will be jockeying to score a role in the much-anticipated offering.
These early discussions are intended for the banks to get an early feel for what Twitter is aiming to accomplish in its IPO so they can better craft sales pitches, sources said.
Twitter’s executive suite — comprising CEO Dick Costolo, operations chief Ali Rowghani and newly appointed finance chief Mike Gupta — have shared a few concerns with the bankers.
Among them, the 7-year-old San Francisco tech company wants an offering that’s “low profile,” one source said.
The concern seemed to reference Facebook’s $15 billion botched offering as something Costolo’s crew wanted to avoid, sources said.
Facebook debuted at $38 a share in May 2012 but stumbled out of the gate and fell to as low as $17.73 last September.
It has since rebounded and hit a high of $39.32 earlier this month.
Some experts believe Facebook’s $38 price — which rose over the course of the IPO process — also may have contributed to its woes.
To that end, Twitter is said to be considering a offering that is more manageable than Facebook’s blockbuster deal.
Twitter may be willing to leave money on the table to accomplish that objective, sources said.
Twitter officials have also acknowledged that the company has some work to do to monetize its platform, which is another factor that could make for a conservative IPO approach.
“But Twitter is banking that it’s positioned well going forward,” noted a bank source.
More than 50 percent of Twitter’s revenue already comes from mobile advertising, a higher blend than Facebook, which was a concern for investors when the social network went public.
In the private markets, Twitter shares have been worth about $20 throughout 2013, according to filings from public funds that own stakes in the company.
The company was valued at about $10 billion in a private-funding round this year, according to reports.
The micro-messaging service is expected to generate about $582.8 million in ad revenue this year and approach $1 billion in 2014, according to eMarketer.
“By reading between the lines, you can see this IPO is coming fast,” said Pat Healy, CEO of Issuer Advisory Group, which consults firms on going public.