Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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...
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.
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?
Isn't that what the "I feel lucky" link is about? :-P
"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.
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? =)
oh yes, it is an incredibly expensive share - current sales are about $268 million, and it's currently selling shares that value the company at $23 billion. That makes a P/E of 85, which is a teeny bit over-optimistic.
Like, most shares trade at about 15-20 times earnings.
Which means, as you own a little bit of the company, it'll take you 85 years before the company has sold as much ads as you paid, which manke syou think of those terribly overpriced tech boom stocks. Remember when Yahoo had a P/E of 133, with almost no profits? What is it today?...
Unfortunately, there's no data about Google's financials published yet, so you can only speculate on what the price will end up as - but if you base the share price on earnings, you'll get the idea that it can only go down. (which is another reason why this dutch-IPO hasn't gone down well, the professional investors think its overpriced too).
Thursday?
Jonny, tell him what hes won....