Join Facebook ?

On Facebook, eh , but are you really part of Facebook?

Goldman Sachs clients have an opportunity to invest in an unnamed “private company that is considering a transaction to raise additional capital” aka Facebook.

Only a few catches. You have to invest a minimum of $2 million. If you do invest, you can't sell your shares until 2013. Goldman is charging stiff fees for the privilege — a 4 percent placement fee and a 5 percent cut of the investment’s profits.

Goldman Sachs (and Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies) are investing $500 million Facebook, in a deal that values the social networking giant at $50 billion. Also as part of the deal, the bank is going to help raise another $1.5 billion for Mark Zuckerberg's tech juggernaut. It helped send Goldman’s shares up $4.89, or 2.9%, to $173.05 on Monday. The shares now have recouped nearly all of what they lost in the aftermath of the Securities and Exchange Commission's civil fraud case against the bank. The SEC alleged that Goldman in 2007 defrauded investors in marketing what became toxic mortgage securities. Goldmanagreed to settle the SEC case by paying $550 million. As usual with such cases, the bank wasn’t required to admit wrongdoing.

Goldman will create a “special purpose vehicle” so that its high-net-worth clients can buy in. The best thing about the vehicle: It will bypass SEC requirements that firms with over 499 investors have to disclose their financial results to the public, since the vehicle will be managed by Goldman, which, despite pooling the funds of thousands of investors, is deemed to be a single investor.

A company will generally go public (through an Initial Public Offering ) for one of two reasons: to raise capital; and/or to provide an exit strategy for early-stage investors. In either case the purpose of going public is to attract the highest valuation possible. Facebook clearly has no need for capital and has plenty of liquidity options for existing shareholders.

Goldman Sachs couldn't give a hoot about the social web and sharing. Just the profits