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Google Goes Public at $85/share
adpowers writes "It is official. Google will have its IPO debut at $85 per share. To quote the article, 'At that price, the low end of its recently revised range, Google raised $1.67 billion, with $1.2 billion to go to the No. 1 Internet search engine and $473 million to Google executives and investors selling their shares.' Trading begins Thursday, August 19th." Got Google?
I am exchanging every single share of SCO I own for Google. In your face, Darl!
I for one, welcome our new non-income-generating, but VC-attracting overlords. Where do I get my Aero chair?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
... how many google employees have become instant millionaires?
-- Bryan
Google is valued at around $23B. Even though it is lower than recent estimates, it is still much higher than people were originally speculating: $10-15B.
Does that mean the search results will start to suck beacause the engine gets fat and lazy, sitting around all day smoking pot. I know I would if I had 1.2 billion dollars. Maybe they should put the engine on an allowance to keep it honest.
I, for one, would be lost without it. However, I will be interested to see how it develops now it's under external influences.
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
Anyone else see the irony of linking to the Google index from finance.yahoo.com ?
No? Just me.
(actual shipping charged to the buyer, negative feedback will be left, paypal only please, no international shipping, thanks for looking at my worthless crap, you are viewer number 0000000000000000001, sold as is, etc, etc, ...)
Sometimes the media overanalyzes. If you read last night's article in the New York Times, barely anyone mentions that the simple reason the expected share price dropped is that: people did not understand/were confused by the auction process.
I think that's about it. Nothing very complicated at all...
Are we sure these aren't beta shares like gmail? Anyone have a stock invite to share?
Recipes for geeks -- no meatloaf, we promise.
Although to some pundits the lower price signals a weaker offering, some of this could be to GOOGs benefit.
The lower per share value was followed by a lowering of shares available. This could generate more interest in the shares, which will drive prices up (or keep them constant longer).
It does, however, mean the cap has gone down by over 25% (36B to 26B). Still bigger than my bank account, though.
The Economist has a good article giving analysis of the IPO.
I fear that for Google, going fully profit and opening to investors might in the long run have a negative impact... Will big Google shareholders be able to influence what appears in the Search Engine? Maybe right now this will be impossible, but who knows what might happen in the future... And what will be the consequences of it for the users?
Maybe the problem is the following: there is a way in which Google is perceived now that is fundamentally wrong. It is treated as a "service" for Internet Users, the One and Only Search Engine, while it is just Yet Another Company.
Monopolies (especially privately-owned and profit-making ones) are never good. Will Google become as Bad(TM) as Microsoft?
With an already profitable business, and lots of extra money in its pocket, can we expect Google to start a buyout spree? Some targets might include Vivisimo with their clustering technology, Girafa for visualizing search, or even some of the better Web APIs applications like Google Alert or the GoogleBrowser, as this Wired story suggests.
After all, the company offers only one basic product (albeit in a couple of incarnations).
Microsoft are starting to consider Google as competition. And competing with Microsoft has historically been a bad move - I can see Longhorn's search facilities integrating with MSN search such that the boundary between the Internet and the PC on your desk becoming blurred. Google are pretty much at the top, and it'll be almost impossible to maintain that long-term.
So you probably wouldn't buy this share for growth. How about income? Has Google publicised what it plans on offering in dividends? Even if it did, with no past record to go on, how can you have any idea what level of income to expect?
Even if you don't buy the share for growth, it's still an expensive share. It wouldn't take much for its value (and thus the value of the investment) to plummet.
Ultimately, I think this share is a bet that the rich might be prepared (and financially able) to take, but most would be well advised to steer clear of. The dot-com bubble burst a long time ago.
If the only reason the price went down was confusion, then today when the stock is listed and can be bought by "normal" means, then it will shoot right up to $135, right?
"I am actually disinfranchised..."
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
First, pick up and read a copy of The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham (commentary by Jason Zweig).
1) By all fundamental measures, this stock is dramatically overpriced. (Ask yourself how a search engine -- which could likely be replaced by next years' "next new thing" -- could be worth, on a per cap market basis, as much as McDonalds.)
2) IPOs usually only make one group of people rich: the boardroom execs. Don't be suckered by the initial rise in price -- IPOs are almost always followed by a dramatic downturn.
I remember Cisco used to be about 85$....
I love it when people consider the cost per stock as an indicator of whether a company is overvalued. It is people like you who create arbitrage in the market for the rest of us to exploit...
Different companies have different number of stocks you know. $85 gives Google a total value of $23 Billion (market capitalization), while Cisco is still worth around $150 billion...
Where do I get my Aero chair?
This was the stock auction. The bankruptcy auction isn't for another few months, at least.
Weren't you alive five years ago? =)
>I do not see how a share can be fairly priced ...
>why the SEC allows this practice?
I assume that this is the heart of the question.
The purpose of SEC is not to determine if a share of a company is fairly priced or not. Thats your job.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Thursday?
Jonny, tell him what hes won....