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Facebook hits the news once again and this time with a supposed announcement that it will allow its employees to sell 20% of their vested stock options at a valuation of $4 billion as reported by Eric Eldon.

The present offer isn’t much worth until Facebook tips plans for a sell out or goes public; these as we know appear to be highly unlikely as Facebook has turned down quite a lot of offers over the years and it isn’t planning to IPO anywhere in near future. The current offering for employees is to make them stay with the company and at the same time enabling them to muster a few benefits for the work they put in.

The current employees are bound by a condition to complete a period of around two to four years at Facebook before they can actually monetize the shares. Unlike the employees who have already resigned and according to reports have sold their shares at the current valuation; all because these ex-employees don’t need a permission from Facebook to do so.

The present stock value for Facebook is $4 billion but that of preferred stocks sums to $15 billion. The difference comes along as most stockholders have rights; those to sell their stocks first and have returns for the amount invested before other stockholders get to sell theirs. One such preferred stock holder is Microsoft that has been termed as the possible IPO for Facebook. Well there is not much of details available save for Peter Kafka’s analysis of this current situation.