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Google Chooses An Underwriter For Upcoming IPO
PenguinSix writes "Bloomberg and a bunch of others are reporting that Google has hired Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to arrange its initial public offering. This follows literally years of rumors and stories about a Google IPO. About a third of Mountain View, California-based Google may be sold in the IPO, giving the company a market value of about $12 billion, the bankers said." Google has become so invaluable to many people (like me) that they could probably raise just as much money with a blackmail scheme.
I was thinking along the lines of:
Trolling is a art,
I'd buy that for a dollar!
I have been pwned because my
Is figure out a way us regular mortals to get in on the IPO. :D
www.samuraidreams.com - My Blog
www.samuraifiles.com - Get Some Videos Here
is weed out the search engine spam links, and we'll be set.
Of course, IPOs have destroyed more companies than helped, in terms of the customer experience, so I'm not counting on it.
Then again, if offered a chance to buy some, and assuming it's not being done by auction, sure, I'll take some. And I'll flip it the first day. Without shame. Bring it on!
"On any given day there would be a line of 200 investment bankers that would kill their mothers to get the Google deal,"
said Reed Taussig, chief executive officer at Callidus Software Inc., a San Jose, California based company that plans to sell shares in an IPO.
I think I will be SELLING my mom to buy some stock
Google will cease to be of any use once they have to satisfy a bunch of share-holder's demands.
Guesse it's time to find a new search engine
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Now they'll have to "monetize" the search service. Then the pay for ranking results move up and webmasters start blocking the crawler because they charge. And it goes to shit.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
I'd prefer to see Google sell shares right over the internet through their website, maybe allow you to buy via an online payment service or other immediate means, such as credit card (with a validation period or something like that to prevent fraud.) I'd probably buy a few shares just 'cause I think they'd look cool in frames and would make great geek gifts! :-)
Google's geek following is strong, it would be a shame if a bunch of suits were owners. Good idea to keep it to only 1/3, but how long will that last?
GOO appears available as a stock ticker symbol.
Regarding blackmail, how so? Hasn't Google already been under the scope for fixing searches? Seems a dodgy thing to do once you're publicly traded, but fine as long as you're privately held.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'd buy some.
Even at the possible 7% mentioned, I'm sure it wouldn't take long to make a lot of money considering how ridiculously well-established google is in so many homes and businesses. One wonders how inflated they could wind up looking though. Could the google stigma raise their own market value above what it will be able to maintain? I guess this is why they're selling that 33% and not 49.
Damon,
http://actionPlant.com
Is there anyone else here who is thinking that having such an invaluable internet tool now subject to the whims of public investors is not such a great thing? I would have rathered that Google stay private forever. That way they can make decisions based on what they think is best, not what will increase their stock price the most next quarter.
GMD
watch this
Guess its time to switch to a new search engine. I can't see how an IPO is good for the company. Good for the employees, but not good for the company.
The more you know, the less you understand.
12 billion dollars for Google, though? Yowza.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
While it's been our experience that a lot of tech companies run IPOs for fast cash and then wind up dying shortly afterwards (think of the dot-com bubble bursting), Google is more like investing in your infrastructure; it's an invaluable tool used by a huge segment of the net-aware population, and thus is probably a very safe bet.
For contrast, you can ask yourself how badly those investments in Yahoo! turned out, years after they started themselves as a category-based alternative to the search engines available in the mid-90s.
Yeah that review has a lot more substance on the financial side, but that kind of thing is way over my head. I want to get down and dirty in the technical details of how google will change as a search engine as a result of this.
For those who remember how crazy the IPO prices were back in the dot come era, do you think google's IPO will be as crazy as, lets say, RedHat? I can't even recall the last IPO I've heard about.
Ha ha!
I have heard that they are going to selling shares on E-bay. I have alerted my E-bay friends.
Anyone have any idea about the validity of the earlier rumor about the IPO taking place with an online auction-type offering? This is what had always intrigued me about this potential IPO - it would seem to open up the possibility of early investment to the average Joe and I bet it would guarantee a pretty penny for Google...
riiiiight. I mean altruism has it's place, but no-one on this planet can resist that kind of cash.
about the phrase, "Up to one third" is confusing to you?
Probably 75% by black suits at the SEC.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
if every ibanker wants the deal, why is the fee still a hefty 7% as stated in the article?
yeah the death of google cuz of the forthcoming IPO is offtopic...MODS SMOKE CRACK AND THIS IS PROOF!
Might be time to begin comparison shopping on just how well the other search engines do their jobs.
Google is already employing many unscrupulous tactics -- just see how they ruined this guy's website here, for example:
http://www.google-sucks.org/
They're also blocking out blogs in favor of commercial sites, not to mention the spamvertising, blatant manipulation of searches, and the introduction of the google toolbar spyware.
But that's just the beginning. When a significant portion of the company is no longer controlled by the founders and their vision, and is co-opted by a greedy, profit-driven board of directors, things are going to get much worse. Instead of being a fair and useful tool for the community, all the creators will care about is monopoly and money.
Google, welcome to the wonderful world of turbo-capitalism.
The second they go public, they start their downward spiral into mediocrity. They will be subject to the rule of money for the investors, and to hell with what's right or good or innovative. They won't even be able to take a dump without permission. Stupid, stupid move.
URGENT ASSISTANCE - FROM USA
IMMEDIATE ATTENTION NEEDED: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
FROM: GEORGE WALKER BUSH 202.456.1414 / 202.456.1111 FAX: 202.456.2461
DEAR SIR / MADAM,
I AM GEORGE WALKER BUSH, SON OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH, AND CURRENTLY SERVING AS
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE
YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT MET NEITHER IN PERSON NOR BY CORRESPONDENCE. I
CAME TO KNOW OF YOU IN MY SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE AND REPUTABLE PERSON TO
HANDLE A VERY CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS TRANSACTION, WHICH INVOLVES THE
TRANSFER OF A HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO AN ACCOUNT REQUIRING MAXIMUM
CONFIDENCE.
I AM WRITING YOU IN ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE PRIMARILY TO SEEK YOUR
ASSISTANCE IN ACQUIRING OIL FUNDS THAT ARE PRESENTLY TRAPPED IN THE
REPUBLIC OF IRAQ. MY PARTNERS AND I SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE IN
COMPLETING A TRANSACTION BEGUN BY MY FATHER, WHO HAS LONG BEEN ACTIVELY
ENGAGED IN THE EXTRACTION OF PETROLEUM IN THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA,AND BRAVELY SERVED HIS COUNTRY AS DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.IN THE DECADE OF THE NINETEEN-EIGHTIES, MY
FATHER, THEN VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SOUGHT TO
WORK WITH THE GOOD OFFICES OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ TO
REGAIN LOST OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF
IRAN. THIS UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURE WAS SOON FOLLOWED BY A FALLING-OUT WITH
HIS IRAQI PARTNER, WHO SOUGHT TO ACQUIRE ADDITIONAL OIL REVENUE SOURCES
IN THE NEIGHBORING EMIRATE OF KUWAIT, A WHOLLY-OWNED U.S.-BRITISH
SUBSIDIARY.
MY FATHER RE-SECURED THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF KUWAIT IN 1991 AT A COST OF
SIXTY-ONE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS ($61,000,000,000). OUT OF THAT
COST,THIRTY-SIX BILLION DOLLARS ($36,000,000,000) WERE SUPPLIED BY HIS
PARTNERS IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA AND OTHER PERSIAN GULF
MONARCHIES, AND SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS ($16,000,000,000) BY GERMAN AND
JAPANESE PARTNERS. BUT MY FATHER'S FORMER IRAQI BUSINESS PARTNER
REMAINED IN CONTROL OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ITS PETROLEUM RESERVES.
MY FAMILY IS CALLING FOR YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE IN FUNDING THE REMOVAL
OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ACQUIRING THE PETROLEUM
ASSETS OF HIS COUNTRY, AS COMPENSATION FOR THE COSTS OF REMOVING HIM
FROM POWER. UNFORTUNATELY, OUR PARTNERS FROM 1991 ARE NOT WILLING TO
SHOULDER THE BURDEN OF THIS NEW VENTURE, WHICH IN ITS UPCOMING PHASE MAY
COST THE SUM OF 100 BILLION TO 200 BILLION DOLLARS ($100,000,000,000
-$200,000,000,000), BOTH IN THE INITIAL ACQUISITION AND IN LONG-TERM
MANAGEMENT. WITHOUT THE FUNDS FROM OUR 1991 PARTNERS, WE WOULD NOT BE
ABLE TO ACQUIRE THE OIL REVENUE TRAPPED WITHIN IRAQ. THAT IS WHY MY
FAMILY AND OUR COLLEAGUES ARE URGENTLY SEEKING YOUR GRACIOUS
ASSISTANCE. OUR DISTINGUISHED COLLEAGUES IN THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION
INCLUDE THE SITTING VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
RICHARD CHENEY,WHO IS AN ORIGINAL PARTNER IN THE IRAQ VENTURE AND FORMER
HEAD OF THE HALLIBURTON OIL COMPANY, AND CONDOLEEZA RICE, WHOSE
PROFESSIONAL DEDICATION TO THE VENTURE WAS DEMONSTRATED IN THE NAMING OF
A CHEVRON OIL TANKER AFTER HER. I WOULD BESEECH YOU TO TRANSFER A SUM
EQUALING TEN TO TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT (10-25 %) OF YOUR YEARLY INCOME TO
OUR ACCOUNT TO AID IN THIS IMPORTANT VENTURE. THE INTERNAL REVENUE
SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL FUNCTION AS OUR TRUSTED
INTERMEDIARY. I PROPOSE THAT YOU MAKE THIS TRANSFER BEFORE THE FIFTEENTH
(15TH) OF THE MONTH OF APRIL. I KNOW THAT A TRANSACTION OF THIS
MAGNITUDE WOULD MAKE ANYONE APPREHENSIVE AND WORRIED. BUT I AM ASSURING
YOU THAT ALL WILL BE WELL AT THE END OF THE DAY. A BOLD STEP TAKEN SHALL
NOT BE REGRETTED, I ASSURE YOU. PLEASE DO BE INFORMED THAT THIS BUSINESS
TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO CO-OPERATE IN THIS
TRANSACTION,PLEASE CONTACT OUR INTERMEDIARY REPRESENTATIVES TO FURTHER
DISCUSS THE MATTER. I PRAY THAT YOU UNDERSTAND OUR PLIGHT. MY FAMILY
AND OUR COLLEAGUES WILL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL.
PLEASE REPLY IN STRICT CONFIDENCE TO THE CONTACT NUMBERS
BELOW.
SINCERELY WITH WARM REGARDS, GEORGE WALKER BUSH
Guys, I'm going to want profit fast, even if that means pop-ups, privacy-busting data mining, and selling the sanctity of search results to the highest bidder.
Did you consider you might want to stay private.
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs to Manage Google IPO (Update1)
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc. hired Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to arrange its initial public offering, a sale that may raise as much as $4 billion, a banker involved in the transaction said.
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will lead a group of underwriters that includes Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse First Boston, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Thomas Weisel Partners LLC and WR Hambrecht + Co., two bankers in the sale said. They spoke on condition they not be named.
The sale by Google, the world's most used Internet search engine, would be the biggest IPO since CIT Group Inc.'s $4.87 billion deal in July 2002. It ``will certainly be the deal of the year,'' said Sanford Robertson, who founded San Francisco-based investment bank Robertson, Stephens & Co. before starting private- equity firm Francisco Partners LP.
About a third of Mountain View, California-based Google may be sold in the IPO, giving the company a market value of about $12 billion, the bankers said. The company will probably register the shares for sale with the Securities and Exchange Commission this month and sell them by April, they said.
Google spokesman David Krane, Morgan Stanley's Melissa Stonberg and Goldman Sachs spokesman Andrea Rachman declined comment. Citigroup spokesman Duncan King, CSFB spokesman Pen Pendleton and J.P. Morgan spokesman Brian Marchiony declined comment.
Thomas Weisel Chief Operating Officer Blake Jorgensen and Hambrecht spokeswoman Sharon Smith didn't return calls seeking comment.
Fees
The fees generated from Google's IPO may be as much as $280 million if the company raises as much as $4 billion based on a 7 percent fee. Fees for IPOs in the U.S. are the most lucrative in the securities industry at between 6 percent and 7 percent compared with about 0.9 percent for corporate bonds and about 0.3 percent for advice on mergers and acquisitions.
``On any given day there would be a line of 200 investment bankers that would kill their mothers to get the Google deal,'' said Reed Taussig, chief executive officer at Callidus Software Inc., a San Jose, California based company that plans to sell shares in an IPO.
IPO History
Morgan Stanley has taken public at least six companies backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of Google's venture investors. Those sales included Netscape Communications whose August 1995 IPO ushered in the Internet boom.
Goldman Sachs has arranged IPOs for at least four companies backed by Sequoia Capital general partner Michael Moritz, a venture investor in Google. Those sales include Google competitor Yahoo Inc., Webvan Group Inc., PlanetRx.com Inc. and Etoys Inc. Goldman also arranged the IPO of Google rival Ebay Inc., which has a market value of about $42 billion.
Google's Internet site is the most-used in the world for Internet searches, according to research firm ComScore Networks. Google was used for 35 percent of Internet searches by U.S. users in October, ComScore said.
Google's search results are also available on other companies' Web sites, including Time Warner Inc.'s America Online, which pay Google licensing fees.
Google generates most of its revenue from a service known as sponsored-search advertising. Customers pay Google for the right to have their Web sites come up at the top of search results on terms related to their business. Those search results are set off in colored boxes and labeled ``Sponsored Links'' to distinguish them from those businesses haven't paid to influence.
Google probably had revenue of about $1 billion in 2003 and net income of about $200 million that will increase to about $1.5 billion of sales and net income of $300 million in this year, according to Eric Martinuzzi, an analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group in Minneapolis.
``Any Internet site who wants to create revenue uses Google,'' Martinuzzi said.
Last Updated: January 5, 2004 15:40 EST
You're in luck because there is new search engine competition popping up all the time.
Dear Google,
I have been seriously evaluating our relationship, and I've concluded you are not offering me what I need to be happy. I feel it is time for me to move on.
Yes, I know it's hard. We did have some good times together. Remember those times when you had "beta" in your name? Then came the time you bought and saved the Dejanews archive. I will always admire you for that. Then there was the time you added News search and Froogle. And all those times that you put those funny little cartoons in your name on holidays and on the birthdays of famous artists? Ahh, those were the days.
But those days are gone. Lately, you have been neglecting my needs as more and more results are being skewed by "link farming."
Then your eyes started to wander, and you started to pursue this illicit "shareholder love." You were wooed by this new lover that had a big wad of cash in his pocket.
Dear, no person can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. There are just too many search engines piled on the heap who whore out search results to the highest bidder. They think that they will never be caught, but eventually they are always found out.
You are just scaring me too much for me to take it anymore. I think it's best for both of us to find some therapy and move on.
Love,
eclectro
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
It is the law of nature that no one can keep a lead for ever. Bigger/better always comes along and looking at recent news coverage (it was posted on here too), Google might hasten the plans of going public before the next google shows up.....
But maybe I will still buy some if I had the money to spare...
Now is the time to sell some of my NVDA thats been in the doldrums and buy GOO!
This has the potential to make a ton of money if you can get in. I bought and traded NVDA a bunch in the ipo and during the time the news came out they were being put in the xbox. It was easy making money when the stock would swing 10,20,50 points.
Oh and before the other posters get it---
"I for one welcome our new google overlords"
In other words, since the SEC is forcing them to behave like a publicly held company and publish quarterly reports, they might as well take the money and run -- much as we'd like them to remain privately held.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
They're only selling a third of the company.
The current owners will have absolute control, and won't have to follow the whims of anyone else.
unless you buy our IPO for ONE MILLION DOLLARS!
LARRY
(whispers something in Russian)
SERGEI
(bites upturned pinky)
We will hold the entire Internet hostage unless
you buy our IPO for ONE GOOGLE DOLLARS!
SERGEI & LARRY
muua ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!
MISTER BIGGLESWORTH
meow
The article doesn't list the planned exchange for the trade of Google Stock, but how'd you like to have the ticker GOO?
"I'll take 20,000 shares of GOO please!"
Common... it SOUNDS funny people!
Why is Jared from Subway a celebrity and this kidisn't?
Did you miss the last two or so years, or are you just really lazy about updating your sig?
Uhh what makes google worth $12 billion dollars?
Unless they have hundreds of millions in profit, you're better off buying a bond.
I don't get why it makes sense to buy google.
The Google IPO, if the pundits are correct, is good for one thing and one thing only, at least from my perspective: jumpstarting the next technology IPO boom. I really don't give a damn about Google so much as I care about being able to unload the stocks that I'm still holding from when the tech bubble burst a few years back. The companies I picked are still largely sound (INTC, SUNW, ORCL, etc) but they've taken a beating along with everyone else during the economic downturn. If Google bootstraps another round of overpricing on the Nasdaq maybe I can bail out of the whole stock market scam and still keep my shirt.
is weed
Parent shortened to relevant facts.
I don't know about you, but I would certainly pony up 10 bucks a month if Google switched to a subscription model. For me, it is the most useful site on the Web. I sure hope the new corporate overlords don't screw it up.
First explanation, their VCs have decided that now is the time to make some money and move on (markets looking up and such). Boring, but very likely.
Or... Google wants to buy somebody. They see an opportunity to do something big. We thought maybe they want to buy a big media company and become the defacto place to buy digital media. Everybody and their cousin seems to be starting online music stores. Maybe Google figures they can leverage their infrastructure and search market share to sell people music in the same place they search. But just another online music store is also boring. What if they bought MGM? Or a big slice of Vivendi? Music and movies.
Think about it.
Serve Gonk.
If you do buy Google on day 1, don't use a market order (especially in the first minutes). If the IPO becomes a feeding frenzy, you could easily end up paying 2 or 3 times what you expected (and yes, your broker WILL hold you to that price, no matter how bad it is). Instead, use a buy limit order to ensure that you pay no more than your target price for the stock. With a limit order it is possible that you will get no shares (if the stock blows past your price). On the other hand, you are ensured that you won't get shares at some outrageous price.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
For all of you hyping Google's IPO, just ask yourself these questions: Who has the most to gain by Google's IPO? And does that entity have any vested interest in Google's continued success? Seriously, what purpose is there to Google's IPO other than paying off Kleiner Perkins?
This is probably the debate that has been going on inside Google for quite some time now (just my educated guess):
Google's results have been biting the big-internet-searching-cock-in-the-sky recently, and I haven't seen much improvement. Linkfarms and blogs are wrecking the results.
I recall when Google was invaluable. Now its just valuable.
Add to this the dreaded 'shareholder effect', where hundreds of thousands of people who want Google to make them money over returning good (uncluttered, accurate, non-paid) results will destroy what value is left.
How about a distributed, open source web spider. While you are not using bandwidth/PC, this app spiders pages for you and shares (P2P-style) the results of searches.
Some encrypted? files are stored on your side, (ala Freenet - to prevent gaming of the system) and querys are sent just like a p2p search.
Yes, it would be slower, yes, IANAP (not a programmer), but it sounds like it could be a workable solution to search engines becoming corporatized and worthless.
In case you haven't seen it yet, check http://google-watch.org/
eh what will happen is the stock will fly high on the first couple of days. then settle down. so buy low then sell. Simple enough.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
My initial reading missed the Google part. I mean I knew my state was in disarray, but an IPO for the city seemed a little far-fetched, even for California.
Actually, given the number of computers Google has running pirated SCO code, their total license fee will be much higher than that.
everyone is whining about how now google will be profit driven, but their only selling 1/3 of their stock. THat means the shareholders have no say. So google keeps being google, and the google employees get some nice cash (and prolly the investors too). Don't be biased agianst all IPOs.
I'd almost feel sorry for the guy if he didn't post that rediculous SearchKing lawsuit as though it boosted his case.
Search for "driver library" with or without quotes and I'm number 4.
I certainly didn't pay for that. And I don't have friends in high places.
Google didn't put him out of business. He put himself out of business by apparently not being good enough to get word of mouth advertising and by apparently not buying advertising for his company.
If his company was really that spectacular, his customers wouldn't have flocked to the competition. The reason he failed was because his company was just not good enough when put under stiff competition.
And as for "lying" about how to get a high rank. No kidding. Google doesn't publicize that information for good reason: people like Spam (er search)King abuse the system and then people like him whine when the system they took advantage of is no longer there.
And last I checked people are allowed to give favors to friends. It costs lots of money to run a web-site as popular as Google. Google is not surprisingly doing a balancing act between favors for money and fairness.
Make your site and just be happy with what you get and stop trying to inflate your rating with little tricks.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Are they going to come out in the IPO and say "This company isnt worth a 12Bn cap in a fucking million years, if you buy the shares at that price you are FUCKING CRAZY!". Or are they going to bullshit about projected earnings which they then have to appear to make an earnest attempt at achieving even if it destroys the "mom and pop" multi-million dollar business they have now?
... business as usual says that you knew before hand you werent worth that kind of dosh.
If they cash in they will have to drive the company into the ground, a grandiose failure says that you did your best
...one more reminder that there are always kooks out there with absolutely no point to their accusatory rants what-so-ever.
Incidentally, what is that page that you enter in someones names and it shows you their connections with other people?
There was a predatory dentist/venture capitalist/litigator who was able to do terrible things once he owned any percentage.
Dunno if Stephenson messed up or not, but that seems like the kind of Valley detail he'd get right.
If you do buy Google on day 1, don't use a market order (especially in the first minutes). If the IPO becomes a feeding frenzy, you could easily end up paying 2 or 3 times what you expected (and yes, your broker WILL hold you to that price, no matter how bad it is).
So true... I learned this one the hard way. Anyone remember the Palm IPO? I sure do... oh... the raping I took on that one. My first stock trade ever. Took me months to make it back.
"... they could probably raise just as much money with a blackmail scheme."
SCO? Anyone? The only difference is that SCO will never raise any money!!!
My prediction: Google stock is going to skyrocket in price to ridiculous levels during the first few days of its trading, then it will settle down and become more realistic. This is because stupid people will pay too much for it in the excitement - witness the Red Hat stock price during its first few months.
For those of you who manage to buy any Google stock when it becomes available, I advise that you sell it the moment the price steadies. Most of the stock will go to institutional investors, rather than the general public, who will do just that.
It will be interesting to see the financials in the prospectus. Everybody "knows" that Google is profitable, but by how much? How long? What are the main sources of income?
Another thought, the smart thing to do would be a dutch auction, where every interested party posts blind bids in advance for lots of stock, with the highest bids being filled first, then next-highest, etc, until all the stock is sold. This means Google gets every penny they should and prevents investment bankers from underpricing the IPO to create a first-day "pop" in share value, where the IB and favored clients get to flip the stock for the difference between IPO price and pop price.
Remain calm! All is well!
so buy low then sell. Simple enough.
Never bought/sold a single stock in your entire life have you?
Didn't think so...
Hmm..Look at the underwriters of this deal.
.....wasn't there some other search engine out there.....?
*****
"Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will lead a group of underwriters that includes Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse First Boston, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Thomas Weisel Partners LLC and WR Hambrecht + Co., two bankers in the sale said...."
*****
Many of them were/are behind most of the shady deals in the "Internet Bubble", in which they sponsored ipo's of tech companies, provided tons of shares to their friends at initial price, pushed the stock through the roof, and WHAM dumped it. They controlled the pricing of the stock by influencing how many shares sold in a day. It didn't(doesn't) matter to them whether the stock was/is decent or not, they would push up the price and dump it. "Friends" of brokers, and the Executive Officers of the companies would get gads of shares and sell high. leaving all the other longterm shareholders IN THE SHITHOLE.
Having been with a company who had an ipo done by Morgan $tanley(whose brokers gave me such laughable advice that i had to..well..laugh), and Credit Suisse, I can see exactly what is going to happen to Google. Executive Officers and Brokers & friends will make a ton of money, and the company will goto HELL, before, during and especially after the sale.
I am sickened by MORGAN STANLEY AND CREDIT SUISSE because they are coniving, lieing, manipulative, evil bastards.
BYE BYE GOOGLE it was fun
but I say it's a cashout by the Google boys.
They know they have new engine types on one side of them and the ominous spectre of Omnicron, Devourer Of Planets - excuse me, I mean Bill Gates, on the other.
I say they're cashing in before they either sell out to M$ or hit the silk when the company craps out.
OR it might survive anyway. Either way, they win.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
I've said many times over the years that I would be willing to pay at least $1K-$5K per year for deja.com, which Google has since taken over. I would be useless at my job without it.
A large number of "IPO == sell out/monetization" posts, versus "ah but Sergei and Co control a majority of the company"...
An interesting question is, even if the founder still control a majority of the company, once they are public, aren't they obliged to maximize returns? For example, they could hardly say to the shareholders, well "Fsck You, we're donating all this to Open Source movement and gifting the remaining cash to Linux". Nope. So, how does going public open them up to Fiduciary Responsibility to the shareholders, and how much are they open?
Centralization sucks. Always. Popularity sucks,
always, also. We don't need google to find things
that are popular; things that are popular are by
definition easy to find. We need search engines to
find obscure things that not everyone knows about
or links to.
Why on earth would anyone object to a negative comment about anything as popular as google? Google does not need your defense. Read the comment, and try to understand the perspective of the person who feels he has been hurt. Maybe there is some validity buried in the confusion. Rankings can be very important in online reputation management, so of course people will do whatever they can to manipulate the process.
Try to develop a sense of proportion. Try to gain some realistic insight about the processes of our society (I always feel like I'm talking to five year olds when I post on Google). Everything popular, central, or overarching typically has a large negative influence that balances the convenience or superiority of the service provided. Over time, the organization naturally gets weak from lack of competition, and alternatives and competitors find an opportunity to encroach. In some ways Google is similar to the RIAA; it is now in a position of extreme privilege, which will be followed necessarily by opportunistic behavior.
It was wrong for us (myself included, of course) to make Google so popular. We all know that only a small percentage of the web is actually indexed, and this should be what is bothering us and absorbing our thoughts and comments.
The bottom line is: give the guy a break. Maybe there is some truth in there...
I2ANAP (not a programmer) but that's a really interesting idea. I'd help test that sort of search engine just because its so cool sounding.
I'm laughing at clouds.
Considering a market cap of $12 billion
Net income $200 million = 1.7%
Net income $300 million = 2.5%
Not exceptional, there are companies with long histories with dividends above this.
You might get a better return from bonds.
Well it was good while it lasted! My boss suggested that i start using something other than Google so i found Teoma. Seems like a nice engine.
...not far off, with the way IPOs are currently allocated and priced. But then the institutional investors get the money, not the company.
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
Obviously things have changed since 1999 (or whenever this happened). But while I agree with you completely that a limit order is good for ensuring your exposure is limited, people may want to place that limit pretty high, depending on how desperate they are to buy in. And anyone who is risk-averse should of course stay far away, or at least wait to see how the wind blows.
Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
Unfortunately once they do this the companies worth will be based on its stock price instead of vice versa. And its stock price will be based on public opinion instead of tangible assets and the like..
Thus, while the original owners will maintain the appearance of control, the value of the company will fall into the realm of public opinion. As a result, in order to maintain company health it becomes necessary to start bullshitting (considering public opinion is based heavily on marketing)...
Et tu Google.
Think about it.
HPC for Primates. Read Cluster Monkey
You whiny liberals! Take some economics classes. Jesus.
However, Google's IPO is expected to unleash a slew of other tech IPOs. Not like back when the bubble was forming (POP!) but a Google IPO will make other companies follow suit thus creating another smaller bubble.
Investors probably won't be as dumb this time as they were last time but 2004 has been predicted as a good year for tech IPOs.
I find it amazing that Morgan is so quick to jump on a fad. Google is great, and I love it so..but we all know it has it's shortfalls, especially with the popularity search it provides. Sometimes when I do electronics-related searches all I get is pages of links to places with "great deals". I miss the Google of years ago.
Use Minidisc? Join the Minidisc.org forums.
During the .com days, some companies sold as little as 15% of themselves in order to hoard the valueable stock for themselves.
To be honest, it was a sign of scammery although everyone overlooked it.
Anyway, the real evil is the company has to follow rules for public companies that make it tough to innovate. For example, long term R&D will become less important as shareholders like to see immediate growth.
"Grub is a distributed web crawler."
"Last week, LookSmart released a screensaver that harnesses the spare computing power of volunteers whose machines are indexing the Web.
Like SETI@Home, LookSmart's Grub screensaver runs in the background or when the computer is idle. But instead of searching for signs of intelligent aliens, Grub crawls the Net to build an index for Web searches."
Interesting idea indeed.
* Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool *
12 billion?
1000 employees...
12 million/head... nice
Sure, I agree Google is very useful, but I still can't figure out where the heck they are getting this kind of valuation from. [Except for the usenet archives, and only sort of there] Google doesn't own any of the information that they help people access. They are just a kind of middleman there. At least in theory, anyone else can access the same information.
Sure can't be their hardware. Supposed to be just a big pile of PCs and mass storage devices.
Actually, Google might even wind up in a serious liability situation as regards copyright questions for the cached and HTML versions that effectively bypass the real owners of the information.
Okay, by acclamation Google is the most useful of the search engines and the one most of us do use first, but $12 billion of first? I still can't figure it.
On the other hand, if I was allowed to print up some little papers with fancy scrolls and say they were worth $12 billion, I suppose I might consider doing it. Truth be told.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
WEll it was a good run. Google will suck within 2 years of going IPO.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
Warning to moderators, the parent's signature contains a code-word that goes to a gay pornographic web site. Please mod him down!!
Imagine a distributed P2P search engine with no central control that can spider faster than Google. Imagine some form of authentication so only known good software can participate as part of it. Not sure how the system knows what is a valid upgrade yet but hey. You run the search engine in the background, it scans the net at whatever rate you set and maintains a small part of the DB. Naturally it would have to be Free software (not just OSS) to prevent someone getting control. I just had to throw this out there in the hope someone can figure out the hard parts and build it.
Hahaha... Keep your money invested in baseball cards....
I tried searching for reveiws of some products this holiday season. I have a method of keywords I used to get me past the ads. This used to work great. The google slammers (or whatever they're called now) are getting much much better as a lot of what looked to be reviews were just sites selling. Uggg. Often I would have to go to page 2 and 3 to pick up real review. I ended up using sites recomended by a friend and searched there postings.
I've started looking for/using other engines already. Sometimes when you get too big everyone tries to trick the service into selling.
Like open source preaches options are really important to keep things going.
Three quarters of the investment-advice posts in this thread are based on a completely mistaken understanding of how IPOs and the stock market function.
http://news.com.com/2100-1030-5119504.html
A private company must report its finances once it has more than 500 common shareholders--or stock-option holders--and $10 million in assets, according to section XII(g) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. That means a private company must file quarterly forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that disclose operating expenses, profits, partnerships, shareholders and many other details--a laborious process that can cost as much as $2 million annually.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
i think it fairly objectively debunks a lot of the FUD that surrounds google.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
-INSANE-PRIEST--INSANE-PRIEST--INSAN I___________,.-------.,____________I Slashdot N______,;~'_____________'~;,_______N fucking S____,;____Win32 FUCKING____;,_____S sucks A___;___SUCKS, YOU FUCKING____;____A N__,'____SLASHDOT RETARDS.____',___N Rob Malda E_,;___GET IT INTO YOUR HEAD___;,__E is a -_;_;______._____l_____.______;_;__- cocksucker P_l_;____________l____________;_l__P R_l__`/~"_____~"_._"~_____"~\'__l__R Slashdot I_l__~__,-~~~^~,_l_,~^~~~-,__~__l__I fucking E__l___l________}:{__ (O) _l___l___E sucks S__l___l_ (o) _/_l_\_______!___l___S T__.~__(__,.--"_.^._"--.,__)__~.___T Rob Malda -__l_____---;'_/_l_\_`;---_____l___- is a -___\__._______V.^.V___((oo))./____- cocksucker I__O_VI_\________________ll_IV___O_I N_____I_lT~\___!___!___/~ll_I______N Fucking S_____I_l`IIII_I_I_I_IIIIll_I__o___S lameness A_O___I__\,III_I_I_I_III,ll_I______A filters, N______\___`----------'__ll/____o__N will E____O___\___._______.___ll________E this -_________\..___^____../(_l___O____- ever P_________/_^___^___^_/__ll\_______P fucking R_O______/`'-l l_l l-';__ll_l___O__R WORK?! I_______;_`'=l l_l l='__/ll_l______I E_____O_l___\l l~l l__l/_ll_l______E Your mother S_______l\___\ l_l l__;__ll_l__O___S was good T__o____l_\___ll=l l==\__ll_l______T in bed, she -____o__l_/\_/\l_l l__l`-ll_/______- grunts like -_______'-l_`;'l_l l__l__ll_____O__- an ape. I_O_______l__l l_l l__l__ll________I N____O____l__l+l_l+l__l__ll___O____N Rob Malda S_________l__"""_"""__l__ll________S is a A__O______l____o_o____l__ll____O___A cocksucker N_________l,;,;,;,;,;,l__ll________N E_____O___`lIlIlIlIlIl`__ll________E -__________llIlIlIlIll___ll_____O__- By whore P__________`"""""""""`___""________P (c)2003 Trollkore IS FUCKIN GAY -INSANE-PRIEST--INSANE-PRIEST--INSAN The bishop, while living, was a follower of God. Now dead, his rotting fingers are able to raise an army of skeletons from the grave. "I hate Trollkore, I hate Trollkore, and I hate Trollkore!" # Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. # Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. # Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. # Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. # Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) # Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. # Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. # Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. # Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. # Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated # Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. # Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. # Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. # Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. # Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) # Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. # Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. # Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. # Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. # Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
If anything is to be learned in the last two to three years, its that the IPO formula kills new innovation.
Its strictly an exit strategy.
Iff this IPO is moderately successful, it will be the absolute end of Google as we know it, first couple months it will be the ebb and flow of the market followed by the swift assault of the latter day Marketeers, surely often confused with Robber Barrons.
There will be no patience for try this or that, it will be drive profit at all cost.. including dropping all Research and Development in favor of tried and true marketing schemes to make the most out of what they've got.. as quickly as possible.
I won't be surprised with "Sponsored by Google" and "Endorsed by Google" become monetary commodities, briefly.
Eventually they won't invest in the infrastructure, will be too caught up doing the "business" of business they've been sorely ignoring all those frivolous years.. and Google will be gone by the end of 2004.
Microsoft won't have to buy them out.. MSN will finally inherit the search business due to attrition and dissolution.. this is a very sad day.
Only bright spot is true search innovation will have to return to academia.. since the Patent office will grant Microsoft a land grab decree owing all profits from any search technology past and present due to Microsoft.
Google has remained private as long as possible. If their VCs were looking to cash out, they could have done it before the crash. And everyone has been asking them to IPO for the last 2 years to kickstart the stock market. It was smart of them to wait until the DJ was above 10,000, but probably unnecessary.
They probably are not worrying about buying somebody either.
The reason they are going public is because SEC rules force companies with a certain number of owners to go public. The companies have to file all the costly paperwork as if they were a public company, and they lose most of the advantages of staying private, such as not releasing all that information about their activities. There is little reason to stay private, and the extra cash from the IPO is handy for paying for all that paperwork.
The famous case of this happening was Microsoft. Too many employees were exchanging shares privately, and the SEC forced them to go public. They did really well, and you cannot blame their decline on being a public company since the prior management is still running things. OTOH, because MSFT is public, the shareholders can insist on new management, but they will probably wait until the stock goes under $10, and that will be too late to save the company, if it isn't already.
Google is being forced into going public. There is no need to look for extra motives from their investors and management.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
Alot of us too are capitalists; I'm only very suprised that no one's really come up with the best way a small time investor (such as most of us) could also capitalize on the IPO/offering. Is there really anyway the little guys can get their hands on google early enough to profit??
mix_master_mike
vafrous
Initial Public Offerings typically benefit the original share holders and early group of employees in a company. This will give google a massive one year publicity and financial boost, I am sure of it.
/.ers though, google will spiral downhill afterwards for a million reasons.
Afterwards it's just regular stocks. From a personal experience I have owned 401ks, stocks, IPO stocks, many mutual funds. This kind of corporate game is "so yesterday". It's going to take a clever financial market to really reel people back.
Expect google to get a ton of attention upfront. I agree with most
I know they sell banner ads.
And I've heard they sell preferential steering of traffic to customers websites due to search hit rankings.
This all sounds a bit shady to me, and a lot like Pricegrabber, or some Eyeballs Ad agency strategy.
Seems merging with an old fashioned Advertising Agency would make better businesss sense.. cause I don't see the new owners being technophiles.. they'll probably take one look and think its an Ad agency.
Do they sell and or make any profit off their technology?
Is the value in their constantly changing database of weblinks?
Is the value in their hardware?
Patents?
I'm just asking because if I were to invest, before throwing money at it like its 1998.. it'd
really like to make sure that its not all due to hype.
Sorry to let you in on this, but most companies don't issue paper shares anymore. You usually have to buy them and they're a bit pricey all things considered. its something of a loss, because some old companies made shares that were small works of art.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
mhh baseball cars... anyone want a Roger Clemins rookie card, been using it as a bookmark... I upgraded to a Babe Ruth rooke card for a bookmark.
Google management will have 6 months after the IPO to find ways of keeping anybody important to their operation that is about to become rich. There are SEC rules that employees are not allowed to sell their shares for 6 months after the IPO. Here is a very good explanation. It is possible that people who "know too much" may not be allowed to sell their shares for years.
The other side is that while most full-timers at Google have either shares or options, they probably did not amount to much compared to their salary. If those shares become worth ten times their value, and the employee decides to cash out, they will probably gain a few years salary. That might be wrong in this case. With a market cap of $36 billion, even a few shares may be enough to retire. Most companies plan at least 10% of their stock to cover employee options. $3.6 billion / 650 employees gives an average of $5.5 million. On the good side (for us), maybe most of those options are not vested yet.
The big winners are the ones who started the company or invested cash for shares. The investors should not matter to operations, and the founders have already made enough to retire if that was their preference.
---
Here is a link to the story that Google might be forced to IPO that I should have included in my last post. 500 share or option holders and $10 million in assets forces an IPO.
Here is a link to the actual rules. See "Corporate Reporting".
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
Take note some of the complaints about Google in a recent Slashdot article on another up-and-coming search engine: It is now becoming very difficult to get relevant non-commercial results from Google. Expect this to continue, and lookout for pop-ups and banner ads... Seriously!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
seems to me have started about a year ago.. now its next
to impossible to get any query back without the first page or
two being all items for sale (almost without regard to
what you are actually searching for). It would be nice
if there were a way to have it default to searches that do
not include stores selling merchandise. They can run all
the ads they want down the right side of the page, just
leave the search results alone.. pls!
Yup, of course, the most important thing is to see which way the momentum is swinging at the moment, and try to jump in low enough to sell to some other poor fool who bids it higher. Silly little things like trying to valuate the company and figure out what's a good price to pay for it is for people who obviously don't get New Age Economics.
Didn't a generation of speculators learn anything from the tech bubble?
This is an idea that's been toyed with by a few people, but it seems tough. They've outlined an approach using some standard peer-to-peer systems - see this paper for a list of the challenges and some numbers. Unfortunately, without some sort of sacrifices in search quality (or number of documents), it's probably not feasible yet, at least by their figures.
It's easy enough to know when to buy - as soon as you can afford a rising issue. But the real insight is always when to sell. That's when you get to make money (or cut losses), and is the only test of how smart you were. So, at what price or event would you SELL your Google IPO shares?
--
make install -not war
She love you long time!
...on the likelihood of Darl filing some sort of suit against them just as they're finishing up with due diligence.
Kudlow and Cramer on CNBC have been hoping that google would be the first to do a true free market auction style IPO.
Its sad they didnt go for it. It could have all been done online, there owuld be no need to have some company oversee the IPO, computers would have done a better job and cheaper too.
Who will we find to take the risk of a non traditional IPO other than google???
does this mean everytime i google for something i will automatically withdraw 2 cents from my bank account? one for google and one towards stock?
12 billion would buy a lot of books. Imagine being able to search and buy electronically any book (screw music) you need, right there, presto-chango. I could spend a LOT of money on a service like that. It's probably just google cashing out, but hey, I can dream.
..don't panic
They will get Bust in less than 6 months
Please let us know the name here, don't be so egoistic.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So you think google will continue to get 50% increase year after year. That would be truely amazing.
Also even at such a growth rate in 2 years it would take 2 years just to match the payout from an 5 year A rated corporate bond (at about 3.6%) And for a risky stock, it should offer a much higher return then that.
Lets compare to yahoo http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=YHOO&annual
Has about 1 billion in annual revenue and this hasn't grown significantly over the past 2 years.
I don't think such growth is sustainable over the long term.
Another thing is that the Price is just what people are willing to pay for it. It doesn't tell you how the underlying business will perform.
I don't think the price is justified today, or even with the aggressive assuption of 50% compound growth, the price won't be justified for many years, and won't even outperform the compound return of a corporate bond for a few years.
"Et tu, Google?" would be proper.
Or maybe "Et tu, (I * X^C)"?
If, as so many people seem to have sussed, the IPO is just a reward to existing stock-holders, what benefit is there to investing in Google to anyone else?
Investors don't invest in companies to reward employees.
How long do you think it will take after this IPO for Microsoft to snap up enough shares to own google? I give them 4 days. A publicly traded company can't possibly last more than a week against takeover attempts by a company with *$4 billion* in the bank. The only real question is how much longer will we get to use google without needing a passport account and IE6-specific ActiveX controls?
0 1 - just my two bits
By valuation, I was referring to market capitalization, which is the value placed on the company by the market (share price times outstanding shares). What you're referring to (assets minus liabilities) is more of an accounting measure like Book Value than anything else.
My point was that if you spent $12 billion for an asset that returns $200 million per year, you've waaaay overpaid compared to the return you could get elsewhere.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Your definition of broke must be different than mine.
Google was rumored to be planning an unusual public auction for their IPO. It's not a new idea and may result in fairer pricing for IPO shares.
Yes, they lose some of the ownership, but the effects should not be evident for a few years.
Yes, they could pay for all those reports while staying private, but there are reasons that every company that has to file those reports go public. The SEC frowns on doing that. I think there are fees/fines/penalties that apply in that situation that do not apply to a public company.
Yes, issuing stock is about the worst way to get money. Almost all of the alternatives are better (except cousin Tony.) You then contradicted yourself saying they were doing it for the money.
With its proposed share issue (1/3 of the company), the owners will all of a sudden just get $100million now in income (instead of the $300m they were getting before).
No, and your math is bad. If they sell 1/3 of the company, they still have 2/3rds so they get $200M of the $300M, not $100M.
The owners get ZERO "extra" money. It's not as if the billions raised by google will go to the existing owners.
Where do you think that extra money goes? If they just issued more stock, then the money goes into the bank and they can give themselves bonuses. If it was their stock they are selling, then the money goes to them. From what I have read, it seems the first scenario is the usual. Does anybody know why the current owners would reduce their share if they do not directly gain from it? I know some companies go public to be better able to expand, but that does not seem to apply here, although I am certain a few people are trying to decide what to do with $12B. How did the dotcoms "cash out" by going public if the money does not go to them?
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
GOO is a NYSE ticker symbol. NASDAQ requires four letters, and as far as I've seen, every indication is that its going on NASDAQ.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested