Accel to sell around $1 billion in Facebook stock (most of their stock)

Or not:

"Update: This is a bit different than we thought. As it turns out, the shares Accel intends to sell are a majority of what it is now eligible to sell. Its total holdings exceeded 150 million shares. TNW apologizes for the confusion."

Accel is not in the business of publicly traded stock, they are in the business of high risk high return private investment. They invested $12.7 million in Facebook and selling it for $1 Billion. They have already made their money and want to return it to their LPs, take their 20% commission of $200 million and raise another fund to do it all over again. Even if the stock went to $100 per share the marginal return on their investment vs. them spending their time investing in the next Facebook. By my calculation they have already netted $200,254,000 on this deal +/-.

EDIT: They will Net the $200m from this deal and then another ~$400m from future sales.