text: Google Files to Sell 14.2 Million More Shares 407
  dabug911 writes "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. Could they be getting the money together to finance all these rumors we keep reading about?"
  This Just In! (Score:5, Funny)
  In a brief interview this afternoon, Tyler had this to say:
  "I mean, after Maps [maps.google.com] and Earth [Google Earth], it was pretty blatant where we were going. Everyone on campus was asking, 'When are we buying NASA?'. The NASA acquisition will offer us access to a variety of communications avenues that would have cost a fortune to contract. Also, it's imperative for our upcoming Google Earth Live... but I've said too much."
  Re:This Just In! (Score:5, Funny)
  Re:This Just In! (Score:5, Funny)
  Re:This Just In! (Score:3, Insightful)
  hmm... not sure this shouldn't get an insightful mod too...
  Re:This Just In! (Score:2)
  Re:This Just In! (Score:4, Funny)
  yeah (Score:2)
  Re:This Just In! (Score:2)
  Don't forget Moon [google.com]!
  Re:This Just In! (Score:5, Funny)
  Re:This Just In! (Score:2)
  Re:This Just In! (Score:2)
  Re:This Just In! (Score:2)
  He just forgot to apply for the patent.
  Now Ipods on the other hand... [slashdot.org]
  1992 Called... (Score:5, Funny)
  Re:1992 Called... (Score:2)
  They're gonna buy CNET (Score:5, Funny)
  And fire all the reporters.
  Re:They're gonna buy CNET (Score:5, Insightful)
  21% profit margins are impressive (Score:5, Interesting)
  Whether or not these dilute the current holdings, the company has a very nice financial profile. It will be interesting to see if they can keep profits up while they start to expand.
  Into the hills (Score:2)
  Investors must be expecting pretty amazing growth for this company for a long, long time, as it maintains its profit margins all the while.
  At these prices, no wonder they're making a stock offering. Time for investors to run screaming naked int
  There's bears in them hills (Score:3, Interesting)
  98% / year revenue growth cannot be sustained for long in any but the smallest of companies. Indeed, it has already significantly slowed for Google. Exponential extrapolation is always a dangerous business.
  What's more, Google has a rival - Yahoo - which will likely result in reduced profit margins. And the sme
  Re:21% profit margins are impressive (Score:2)
  In correct... (Score:5, Informative)
  Let us assume that Google is worth $75b (its really 77, but 75 makes easier math).
  So, it's pre-money value is $76b. Pretend Google is selling $5b work of shares. Now, Google has an additional $5b in cash, making its value $80b. However, everyone has been diluted. So, your previous 1% of Google is now 15/16 of a percent, but the company is worth 16/15 what is was before.
  Now, assuming that Google has a profitable use for that cash, then Google takes that $5 and turns it into $25b of value (but loses the $5b in cash). Now, the new Google is worth $100b. So while you own a smaller share, at the moment of sale you were made whole (by the cash coming in), and you benefit from the increase in value.
  However, reality is NOT so kind. In reality, Google selling $4b worth of shares will probably be at a slight discount, to encourage the big funds to pony up the cash (you don't normally unload $4b of shares on the open market and hope for the best), plus the bankers get paid. So the company ends up diluting by more than the net cash position improves.
  Assuming Google has a profitable use of that cash, you should still come out ahead, because Google will in theory sell $4b in stock, collect $3.8b, and as long as they turn it into at LEAST $4b of value, you're even, and at $8b-$10b, you come out ahead...
  Now let's add a little more reality. Generally, companies deploy their capital in less and less valuable area, which makes sense. If you have 20 profitable investment opportunities, each of which take $1m. If you have $10m to invest, you do the top 10 of them. If you get an extra $10m, you choose the less valuable ones, and if you are stuck with investing another $10m, you either sit on cash or chase the 10 best unprofitable activities to look busy. That's part of why dividend companies with reasonable payout ratios look so good on a dividend-reinvestment basis, they only chase REALLY profitable activities.
  In addition, Google is very profitable, so it should be able to chase most of its profitable investment opportunities. With a P/E of 80, the implied cost of capital is MUCH higher than a junk-bond offering, which would only expect an 8%-10% return (interest) compared to investors expecting an 80% return (no I'm not doing the math, but its a ridiculous annual return to justify paying 80 times trailing earnings, somewhere in the 40%-80% annualized range).
  Therefore, the non-financial view of the situation is: profitable companies that think their stock is undervalued do stock buy-backs, which boosts EPS, and make sense if the company believes that their stock is a better investment than any other projects that they could invest in (meaning they can only get a 20% return on new projects, but a 40% return buying their shares), and tend to do secondary offerings when they think their stock price is high (meaning, they can get a better return on the money than the market, they expect the company's stock to be a -10% return and they can get a 3% (money market) or higher return on the cash).
  I would consider this offering bearish, even though the fundamental financial analysis looks closer to neutral.
  Alex
  Re:Incorrect... (Score:5, Interesting)
  If you want real analysis, I suggest hiring a financial analyst and have them spend about 4 hours with spreadsheets... not ask for it on Slashdot...
  But, in a nutshell, if Google has a business plan for deploying $4m that will let them extract monopoly rents for the next 5 years, then that would drastically increase their profits once the monopoly is secured and allowing them to extract monopoly rents (monopoly rents = economics term for the excess profit generated by a monopoly or partial monopoly... i.e. Internet Companies in general are in a monopolistically competitive field, where each company is differentiated... unlike say, farmers with corn... so there is a small monopoly rent, but it isn't like Microsoft that carries a monopoly on a complete market... the fewer competitors, the more "rents" extracted, and an oligopoly, like the search engine market, has each player potentially extracting large "rents")...
  I mean, Google did something short of $1b last 12 months (or run rate, or something, I forget, I'm not an analyst and don't really follow Google's financials)... If you assume that with a monopoly on the market (to the point where everyone else takes what Google leaves on the table, Google's earnings go from $1b to $4b, then Google should increase 400%... except that the P/E probably drops in half as growth slows, so Google marketcap should increase 200%...
  In any scenario where Google puts the money to profitable use, this SHOULD be a good deal for the shareholders.
  However, in the likely scenario where Google wants to use its "overvalued" Marketcap to raise money, this is BAD for shareholders... NOTE: this isn't inherently bad... I'm not suggesting that they are being bad fiduciaries... I'm suggesting that they may want to use this small 5% dilution to increase earnings by 20% or more, making this a GOOD fiduciary action, but it is likely that the company is doing it now because they expect the price to fall, making this a bad omen, even if the right financial mood.
  A high P/E stock has a HIGH discount factor of future cash flows, with an expected return on investment FAR ABOVE the worst of the junk markets... If Google didn't expect a price drop, they should fund via debt, not equity, to maximize shareholder value... That said, tech companies tend to not like debt, and not pay dividends, trying to increase their internal value.
  Alex
  It's not STEALING (Score:4, Insightful)
  You invest $1 in company X.
  The company is worth $100, and you own 1%, 1 share of 100 outstanding.
  Company X realizes that it needs $100 to expand.
  Company X sells 100 shares, and receives $100.
  The company is now worth $200. Basically, this was a neutral event, no effect on income statement, and on the balance sheet, Cash (an asset) went up by $100, and Paid in Capital went up by $100.
  Any analysis of the stock should figure out the value of the business (not counting cash), plus the cash on hand... P/E doesn't, but a discounting cash flow should. P/E is a simple overview and assumes that cash in a "normal amount."
  You still own 1 Share, worth $1. You are EXACTLY where you were before.
  However, you have half the "ownership."
  Now, if the company uses that $100 to create $200 (of value), in one year, the company is now worth $400. Your one share is worth $2.
  Now, without dilution, your share (1%) would be $4, but that isn't real, because without that $100 the company would still be worth $100, so you'd only have $1.
  See? That increases your value, IF the cash is put to good use.
  If the company screws up, and when they sold 100 shares, they only received $50 because of all the fees, then the company was worth $150 and your share 75 cents, OH NO. If they turn that $50 into $100, the company is worth $200, and you are back to $1. If they turn that $50 into $0, bought pets.com, then the company is only worth $100, and your investment is worth 50 cents.
  In other words, if you believe management has a positive use of cash, this is a positive event (although I'd prefer debt given Google's high P/E and therefore high discount factor... or the market expects MASSIVE growth for YEARS without a high discount factor).
  If you believe management has a crappy use of cash... well, this is a bad event. However, if they really misuse their cash, you should sell the stock while it is worth $1, before it becomes worth $0.
  Alex
  no dilution (Score:2)
  While more shares are issued, the amount of assets Google has will increase by $4bln. Therefore the amount of assets per share remains exactly the same
  and the share price (at least theoretically, assuming efficient markets) is not affected.
  Cashing inflated stock (Score:2, Insightful)
  Or are they cashing their extremely inflated stock?
  Re:Cashing inflated stock (Score:2)
  That's what I'd do. Cash in and after the bubble bursts buy it all back at a reduced price. Sounds smart to me - unless of course the SEC frowns on that.
  Re:Cashing inflated stock (Score:2, Insightful)
  Today's issuance of new stock is why the price is down almost 7 bucks today...dilution.
  Re:Cashing inflated stock (Score:3, Insightful)
  Re:Cashing inflated stock (Score:2)
  Because their P/E is about 60% higher than the average in their industry? And because they are sing increased competition in their core business areas. I wouldn't buy their stock at this price. That said, their net results are extremely impressive so I don't think they are "extremely" inflated.
  Re:Cashing inflated stock (Score:2)
  No one is saying they're not good. It's just that they're not that good.
  In good tradition of other American companies... (Score:2, Funny)
  Duh, the article says what the money is for (Score:4, Informative)
  The company, however, said it has no current agreements or commitments to any material acquisitions. Pending acquisitions, Google plans to invest the proceeds in highly liquid, investment-grade securities, according to the SEC document.
  I think that very nicely clarifies what is going on. Very clear and quite obvious. Yep.
  Re:Duh, the article says what the money is for (Score:3, Funny)
  Re:Duh, the article says what the money is for (Score:3, Funny)
  Savantissimo Holdings International Tippling said it intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for general slacker purposes, including non-working capital, capital
  Or maybe... (Score:4, Interesting)
  That's what a stock split is for. (Score:5, Informative)
  Taking any action to purposely bring down the value of your company would be illegal. If they wanted to make a more attractive price point to fool investors without $300 into buying their stock because it appears cheap, that's what a stock split [wikipedia.org] is for.
  Re:That's what a stock split is for. (Score:2)
  True, but lowering the share price and lowering the value of the company are different. There is nothing illegal about issuing shares to bring down the share price - it's just not very sensible.
  Re:That's what a stock split is for. (Score:3, Informative)
  Hogwash. Issuing shares is a neutral event in terms of share valuation. The company ends up with more shares, but it also has more money, which increases the value of the company. Assuming the shares where fairly priced, divide the new value of the company by the new number of shares and what do you get? Why, the same numbe
  Re:That's what a stock split is for. (Score:2)
  The board of directors of a public company has a legal fiduciary responsibility to increase the value of the company. Taking any action (whether to enrich themselves or not) to purposely reduce the value of the company would be illegal.
  Besides, during a stock split the stock usually ri
  Stock Split (Score:2)
  Re:Or maybe... (Score:2)
  Issuing shares is for raising money. It lowers the price and reduces the value of existing shares. Existing shareholders are hurt by new stock issues.
  Re:Or maybe... (Score:2)
  If I was a skeptic, I'd rather guess they want to pay the banks handling the offering(Morgan Stanley, CSFB and Allen & Co.) to mend any potential problems the auction IPO caused between the banks and Google, but I don't think that's the reason either.
  Re:Unbelievable stupidity! (Score:2, Funny)
  You forgot:
  3. ???
  4. PROFIT!
  Just Jealous (Score:3, Interesting)
  Why? What did you think they were going to do? Free wireless access, with a VPN client that also delivers advertising (textads only, no flash animation) based on the web page you are currently looking at, or based on your browsing history if you aren't looking at web pages? With direct support for Internet Explorer, and support for alternate browsers if you use the Google Web Accelerator?
  I never did understand... (Score:2, Interesting)
  Sorry for the dumb question. It just came to me when I was reading the story.
  Yes, yes it does make this kind of loot (Score:5, Informative)
  Re:I never did understand... (Score:2)
  If you go to their Business Solutions [google.com], you will see that while Adsense is listed first, after that they have their Google Search Appliances, and Google Web Search engine.
  Whil
  Re:I never did understand... (Score:2)
  Secondary IPOs are frequently not worth investing (Score:5, Insightful)
  Just because a stock is valued at $XX today doesn't mean it can't just as easily go down as up.
  And when something is new to the market, valuation is still uncertain and the risk of it going down - contrary to most investors expectations - is higher than the risk of it going up.
  However, as a caveat, I should say that some of the secondary offerings and post-IPO investments in certain companies have been very very profitable for me - Red Hat, Coach - which I bought at IPO, held for a bit, sold all or part of, and bought back in when most insiders unloaded their shares.
  So, it's more a question of: Is Google worth MORE than this valuation in the future and is this BETTER than other investments?
  I'm putting money in Japan and Euro value plays mostly - with money in dividend yielding energy stocks that AREN'T oil-based (wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear fission, clean coal).
  But if you want to spend your money, do what I do - never invest more than you can lose, and if it's risky - unless you're really really certain [e.g. RedHat or Coach in my case] - spend LESS than on a typical investment.
  For example, I usually invest around $10,000 in a normal investment, $5000 in a slightly risky investment [a hunch], and $1000 in a highly risky investment [most IPOs and risky stocks].
  Your mileage may vary.
  Beer Money (Score:2)
  There's nothing worse than being right about an investment for the right reasons, but failing to put a decent amount of money into it.
  There's a reason why you want to invest a reasonable amount in every stock. It's so that you seriously think and research it before pulling the trigger.
  If you invest too little in a st
  Re:Beer Money (Score:2, Funny)
  P.S. Can I come over and have a sip of one of your 1000 dollar beers I bet they taste a lot better than the $14 a case stuff my budget can afford.
  Re:Beer Money (Score:2)
  What's even more sad is I tried alot of different funds and investment types. Nothing guarantees you 6 months to 1 year profit like a 3% CD account. Everything else seem to go up a week, and down a week.
  Re:Beer Money (Score:3, Interesting)
  But if they have credit card debt, they probably should not be investing in the stock market at all.
  Paying off credit card debt should be assessed as if it were any other type of investment. How many investments do you know that...
  I drool over such an investment. I wish I had credit card debt, just so I could pay it off!
  Re:Secondary IPOs are frequently not worth investi (Score:2)
  1. Google is better than any investment in the world right now. Their brainpower puts Mensa to shame.
  2. Stop giving investment advice on the internet. No one asked and no one who is in their right mind would log onto their ETrade accounts after reading the ramblings of some Slashdot poster.
  Re:Secondary IPOs are frequently not worth investi (Score:2)
  Re:Secondary IPOs are frequently not worth investi (Score:2)
  Google introduces nation-wide free wireless; Massive exitement.
  Google buys Apple; Massive exitement.
  Google buys TimeWarnerAOL; less exitement.
  I dunno. But some are more likely than others, and it seems likely that the market will hype it.
  Secondary Initial? (Score:2, Informative)
  I think I have google's master plan figured out (Score:2, Funny)
  um...Where's Google's money come from? (Score:5, Informative)
  As best I can tell, Google makes money on:
  (1) AdWords (is this like 90% of their revenue?)
  (2) Intranet searching licenses for those sites who allow you to search it with a Google search, but maybe this is a free service Google offers
  (3) They sell those yellow Google blade servers that look cool but I think accomplish the same as (2) above.
  So how else does Google make money? Every damn thing is free. Gmail, maps.google.com, Google Earth. As a consumer I am not complaining, but as an investor, I won't touch GOOG with ten feet of CAT6.
  Re:um...Where's Google's money come from? (Score:2, Interesting)
  Most of their other products are in beta anyway, so they don't count.
  No, no, no! (Score:3, Interesting)
  1. Google has perhaps loaded up on more talent in their field than any company since Edison.
  2. They aren't actually breaking new ground yet. They're just executing an existing industry/strategy - online search funded by online ads - better than anyone else.
  And difference #2 is good news for investors. They aren't a bolt of lightning like Netscape, they more or less earned their good fortun
  Re:um...Where's Google's money come from? (Score:3, Funny)
  Everything is free, but they make up the difference in volume.
  From the services it can charge (Score:4, Interesting)
  Google could sell company denial-of-service protection. Traffic could be routed through google's farm. Google could filter the wheat from the chaff. Also google know lots about valid clients via GoogleCaching, cookies, GMail accounts, GoogleDesktop, etc...
  Google could automatically vet valid clients versus zombie attackers. With googles huge server farm it could withstand a zombie attack of a hundred thousand boxes.
  Re:um...Where's Google's money come from? (Score:4, Interesting)
  Re:um...Where's Google's money come from? (Score:4, Insightful)
  Those "domain park" sites are often up in the google search hits, and they are useless when I accidentally click on one of them. I've learned how to visually filter them out now.
  If that is really a good source of income for google, I would assume that this is only as temporary as the "put it on the web and make millions" that happened in the late 90's and early 00's.
  Sure people may click though them now, but I don't see this lasting.
  Bad idea in my opinion (Score:4, Interesting)
  After all, the people who buy into Google really don't give a shit what it does or how it does it as long as it makes money and pays good dividends. I don't know exactly what portion of Google will be in "public hands" after this, but if they've sold off enough of the company they could just wind up like almost every other company in the business.
  Maybe I'm sounding a little paranoid, but I really think that going public and giving partial ownership of your company to people who don't share your creative vision is just a bad idea. I don't invest in the market myself, so I can't speak for everyone, but isn't the point to make money? Eventually a unique company like Google that's been pushing new and innovative technology and forcing competitors to work just as hard to keep up, will eventually stagnate and become more of a conservative business that would rather rest on its laurels and make money rather than strike out an pioneer new grounds in the industry.
  Would a company all about the money offer 2GB email inbox sizes, a wonderful and easy to use online mapping service, and a great search service? Personally I think they'd turn out a little more like Microsoft, spending more time talking about all the innovative things they're doing rather than actually doing them and settling into a state of mediocrity.
  Not a bad idea at all (Score:2)
  1. There's voting class shares, then there's non-voting class shares. The majority of voting class shares is still held by the company, by the founders in fact. Control of the company has never been an issue.
  2. Google isn't generous. They're smart. They're not offering free email boxes to be nice. Nor are they offering free mapping services to be nice. Google is an advertising company. In order to advertise at your best you need all the information about your demographic that you can get. Google
  repo business (Score:2)
  "possible acquisitions" (Score:3, Interesting)
  One of the recent ones that I have not read about on slashdot is android [businessweek.com]
  What's interesting about that one is that it's being speculated that they have been creating an Operating System for cell-phones.
  (That should be enough to have another 50 stories on slashdot about people pondering what technology is going get involved with next.
  Ahh, what to do... (Score:2)
  Dot Com all over again? (Score:5, Insightful)
  [url]
  Google is very cool, and their mission is basically to become the next library of Alexandria, which I think is awesome. However, how on earth do they plan to make any MONEY?
  (For those of you who are considering buying some of this new issue, I strongly suggest you read 2 books: "The Intelligent Investor" By Ben Graham and "The Future for Investors: Why the Tried and True Triumph Over the Bold and New." by Jeremy J. Siegel.)
  Google is very cool - but it is really just grep on steroids. I can't see how shares in this company at this point will benifit the shareholder.
  Re:Dot Com all over again? (Score:3, Interesting)
  If Google was in any position to make tons of cash in comparison to current stock prices, you wouldn't see the enormous insider trading that's been going on. Many highly-ranked employees have already sold most of their stock, and that's a pretty clear indication that the stock is badly overvalued. In fact, if anything it means that the employees in question think that the stock price will drop precipitously when the current speculation craze comes to an
  Re:Dot Com all over again? (Score:3, Interesting)
  To some degree yes, however, Ben Graham - author of "The Intelligent Investor" and teacher to Warren Buffett (And 40 other VERY successful investors) disagrees in his book.
  He outlines specifically the difference between "Speculation" and "Investing". There is a fine, but subtle difference. The book is good enough that Buffett himself wrote the forword and the appendix. You may want to check it out.
  imeem.com Anyone Heard This Rumour? (Score:2)
  The BOOM is back ... (Score:5, Funny)
  Selling a piece of PI (Score:5, Insightful)
  Re:Selling a piece of PI (Score:2)
  The Google Gold Card (Score:2)
  Smart move! (Score:2, Insightful)
  Benefits the original shareholders handsomely, and if your stock is hyped enough, you will not suffer any "pecking order" side effects.
  this is not a good sign (Score:3, Interesting)
  offer is unusual in that the vast majority of aquisitions are
  stock based, sometimes with a cash kicker but rarely all cash
  except for relatively small deals (a few 100 million).
  So why does Google go this route of raising cash first when
  they already have about 2.5B in liquidity? My suspicion is
  they either a)expect a significant decline in the stock
  price and are taking advantage of the current high price to
  increase liquidity (note they said general corporate purposes
  which does not in any sense obligate them to make a takeover),
  b) expect a significant decline in their stock price which
  could present difficulties for an all stock deal and hence
  wish ot increase cash on hand in case it is needed to
  sweeten the pot
  This also could be, though a review of the original filing
  would be needed, a way for the insiders to unload some
  stock down the road. Issue new stock today to raise cash,
  buy some company down the road for stock, arrange an
  internal private equity deal where insider sells all or
  some portion of the necessary shares back to the company and
  receives cash at the current market price. This would be
  advantageous to the company were the stock price below where
  they float this new offering as they would have excess cash
  left on the books.
  Oops, hit submit early/thats how google operates.. (Score:2, Insightful)
  They just wait for rumors to appear about what they're going to do next, then just finance them and build them quickly...
  Re:Oops, hit submit early/thats how google operate (Score:2, Funny)
  Re:Oops, hit submit early/thats how google operate (Score:3, Funny)
  You're thinking of Apple.
  Re:Share Prices (Score:2, Funny)
  Re:Cafeteria (Score:4, Insightful)
  Being generous and assuming the cost of a person's labor for 1 year to the company is $100k, this means $4 billion would purchase 40,000 man-years of labor. Considering the world per-capita income is actually closer to around $20,000 (which is still high, mind you, but it makes for simpler math), that would be 200,000 man-years of labor.
  What the heck are these guys doing that's going to require somewhere between 40,000 and 200,000 man-years of effort? (Remember, the cost of everything turns back into man-years of effort.)
  Opening a new office in Giza (Score:2)
  I don't know.
  It sounds like a pyramid scheme to me.
  Re:Cafeteria (Score:5, Interesting)
  Wrong. But, it sounds so true, and so fair, and so, so... liberal
  Proof: You spend 1 man-year acquiring a shovel and digging a ditch. I spend 364-man days designing, acquiring parts and building a back-hoe, and 1 day digging 100 times as much ditch.
  You are claiming that these man-years are identical. They are clearly not, hence your premise is false, by reductio-ad-absurdium.
  Marx argued that everyone deserved to own the means of production, equally. Lefties argue mostly the same thing -- that everyone is equal.
  Capitalism is not the inverse of this (as most Lefties mis-interpret it). It declares that the capital (and means of production) should (and eventually will) flow to those most capable of using it efficiently; to produce a maximal, non-trivial result.
  It may take generations, but this is generally true. My hope is that, finally, some individual or company will use their vast wealth-accumulation capacity to do someting so non-linear, so status-quo-shatteringly huge, that it will re-set the baseline, forever.
  Entities such as Bill Gates, Google, Citigroup (and several others) have the capacity to raise a significant fraction of a Trillion dollars of liquid capital. Lets say that one of them actually decided to leverage that, again, to incent another space-race, but this time between free men and women, instead of governments (think Scaled Composites, tSpace, etc.)
  Imagine if, in 10 years, they actually had a functional fleet on orbit, and processing facilities on the Lagrange points to begin processing megatons of Nickel/Iron/etc./etc. from the asteroid belt, and to collect and transmit Peta-Watt-Hours of electrical energy, per day, to ground collection stations.
  Suddenly, they have transformed that several Billion dollars into orders of magnitude greater results than the same number of man-hours could have produced.
  Because they were visionaries.
  I propose that this is a fact: Every truly interesting result comes from a Visionary, not just plain old Worker.
  The question is: are the founders (and now, the Directors) of Google visionary enough to do something truly remarkable with the wealth-accumulating power that they have very temporarily been blessed?
  Re:looks like a... (Score:2, Funny)
  Although you should probably use Google to determine which hills and Google maps to see how the hills look before you head out there.
  Re:looks like a... (Score:2)
  Re:looks like a... (Score:3, Informative)
  Re:don't they already have a ton of cash? (Score:2)
  Re:fuckedgoogle.com (Score:2)
  Guy clearly has an axe to grind.
  Re:Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
  Well there's that Broadband over Power Line rumor [slashdot.org]. And the massive country-wide Wi-Fi rumor [slashdot.org]. Also the streamable Google [infoworld.com] Operating System [kottke.org]. Oh and the Google Browser rumor [slashdot.org]
  And lets not forget Google needs some money to finance their trip to Mars [google.com]
  Re:Ahh yes... (Score:2)
  Actually, its 14,159,265 shares (digits of PI) (Score:3, Insightful)
  Google sells == 14,159,265 shares...
  You have to love a company so cool that even something as boring as a secondary stock issue can be made into an inside joke for geeks.
  Re:Recurrent capital raising (Score:2)
  Right now Google stock seems over priced. If they sell this stock now and bank the cash when the stock drops in the future they can buy it back.
  Or they could be getting into the WiFiMax game.
  Re:Recurrent capital raising (Score:2, Informative)
  This could either big one big thing or many, many small things.
  BTW, in comparison, Microsoft has 30+ billion in cash on hand, but with many more shares in circulation.
  *no debt is actually very, very little debt. About $290K (0.3 million dollars) in debt.
  Re:A question for financial advisors? (Score:5, Informative)
  These are general rules to follow, but that doesn't mean you can't make money breaking them. Google's explosion of massive growth is pretty much over. With the horrible financial talk they made at their conference call among other things, Google isn't the place to *buy* right now.
  Remember the Golden Rules.
  1) Don't buy a stock because someone told you too. Buy it because you researched it. Everyone in the market wants to sucker you so they can get your money. Nobody that knows anything will give up their cash cow secrets. (Even Jim Cramer of Mad Money)
  2) If the media is talking about it. Your to late. (Mr. Cramer again)
  3) To speculate is to go broke. Make buying decisions on facts. Hard and cold facts. All else is speculation.
  Re:A question for financial advisors? (Score:2)
  4) Avoid buying high and selling low. It sounds utterly obvious, but so many people will buy a stock when it's soaring then panic and dump it when it starts going down. In short, don't buy overvalued stocks, and don't be afraid to hold (unless the company is actually in trouble).
  5) Mutual funds. Do your research, pick 2-3 mutual funds, and put your money in. Leave it there, and keep investing in the same funds (especially when they go down). If you've made decent choices, you'll typically outpe
  Re:A question for financial advisors? (Score:2)
  I would start by suggesting that you contact a Professional Financial Advisor and having a personal discussion with him or her. That way, you can avoid the advise of a million Anonymous Slashdot Cowards.