Google files to sell $4 billion in shares

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Posted on Thu, Aug. 18, 2005

Associated Press

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Google Inc. on Thursday said it has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell 14.2 million shares of class A common stock, an offering worth more than $4 billion at Wednesday's closing stock price.

Shares of Google, which have more than tripled since going public a year ago, closed Wednesday at $285.10 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, giving the offering an estimated value of $4.04 billion.

In pre-market trading, Google shares slipped $9.10, or 3.2 percent, to $276. The stock made its trading debut at $85 on Aug. 19 last year, and climbed as high as $317.80 in mid-July.

Following the stock sale, Google will have about 191.1 million class A shares outstanding. Including about 101.7 million class B shares - of which 79 percent are held by co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Chairman and Chief Executive Eric Schmidt - Google's outstanding stock will total about 292.8 million shares.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/12415139.htm

[Massacure]

1. Class A? Class B? Does someone want to explain this to me?

[northzax]

2. without knowing the specifics of Google...

it is likely that class B shares have a greater voting weight than class A shares. This is a traditional way to sell off part of the company while retaining control for the founders and initial investors.

more info: from Google's IPO filing: Following this offering, we will have two classes of authorized common stock, Class A common stock and Class B common stock. The rights of the holders of Class A common stock and Class B common stock are identical, except with respect to voting and conversion. Each share of Class A common stock is entitled to one vote per share. Each share of Class B common stock is entitled to ten votes per share and is convertible at any time into one share of Class A common stock.

http://www.secinfo.com/d14D5a.148c8.htm

to give you an idea of the difference, when Google went public in June, 04, the following options were outstanding, the founders and CEO probably owned the 10,000,000 options of class B (they made $130 on each share):

•1,933,953 shares of Class B common stock issuable upon the exercise of warrants outstanding at June 30, 2004, at a weighted average exercise price of $0.62 per share.

•6,276,573 shares of Class A common stock issuable upon the exercise of options outstanding at June 30, 2004, at a weighted average exercise price of $9.42 per share.


•10,456,084 shares of Class B common stock issuable upon the exercise of options outstanding at June 30, 2004, at a weighted average exercise price of $2.68 per share.


•3,891,192 shares of common stock available for future issuance under our stock option plans at June 30, 2004.

[Demonaut]

3. buy buy buy!..................this is where the newbie investor class gets

screwed