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 Google Inc. rose after reorganizing into a holding company called Alphabet Inc., breaking out its main Web operations from ambitious new endeavors such as research lab Google X and Calico, which seeks to extend human lives. 
 
 The structure, announced Monday, will give greater clarity into how Google invests in various ventures, including driverless cars, high-speed Internet service and health-related technologies. It also makes it easier to make any future acquisitions or potential divestments. 
 
 “There’s been a lot of speculation about how much money they put into these other ventures,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Financial. “That will come to an end. This also gives them the structure to add in another business line if they were to acquire something. The mechanism is in place.” 
 
 Read the Bloomberg Businessweek Profile: Google's Sundar Pichai Is the Most Powerful Man in Mobile 
 
 Shares of Google gained 4.1 percent to $690.30 at the close in New York. The stock has climbed 30 percent this year, with much of the gain coming after the company reported quarterly results last month. 
 
 The goal isn’t to make Alphabet a consumer brand, said Larry Page, co-founder and current chief executive officer, who will hold that title at Alphabet. Co-founder Sergey Brin will be president. Ruth Porat will remain chief financial officer of the holding company. Sundar Pichai, Page’s deputy, will be promoted to CEO of Google Inc., which generates the bulk of the company’s $60 billion in annual revenue. 
 
 New Structure 
 
 Omid Kordestani will transition from his role as chief business officer to become an adviser to Alphabet and Google. 
 
 “Sergey and Larry will be able to allocate their time differently between the core and non-core businesses,” said Sameet Sinha, an analyst at B. Riley & Co. “You have Sundar focusing on the core business, and you will have Larry and Sergey kind of looking at the future growth businesses.” 
 
 The new structure will be introduced in phases in the coming months. Alphabet will give its results as a holding company starting with the fourth-quarter earnings report, which is usually released in January. 
 
 With this move, investors will get more details on how the businesses are operating, a longstanding concern on Wall Street. Spending on projects that include everything from driverless cars to chip-embedded contact lenses has rankled investors, who aren’t sure how long it will take for the efforts to pay off. 
 
 The announcement comes months after Porat joined Google in May, following a five-year stint as Morgan Stanley’s CFO. She has said Google can maintain growth even as it manages the pace of expenses. 
 
 “We’ve long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes,” Page wrote in the post. “Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable.” 
 
 For anyone who owns shares of Google now, no action is required. The stock will automatically convert into Alphabet shares that represent stakes in the same collection of companies that exists today, just arranged differently. The change won’t require a shareholder vote or create any extra taxes. 
 
 “The conversion will occur automatically without an exchange of stock certificates,” according to a regulatory filing. “Stock certificates previously representing shares of a class of Google stock will represent the same number of shares of the corresponding class of Alphabet stock.” 
 
 Word Play 
 
 While Alphabet may be an unusual choice for a multibillion-dollar Web conglomerate, it’s more mundane than the company’s name, which was considered odd before it become a household term. Page and Brin adopted Google, a misspelling of the large number Googol (1 followed by 100 zeroes), when they founded the Web-search company in 1998. 
 
 “We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search!” Page said. “We also like that it means alpha-bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for!” ||||| 
 
 
 
 Santa's jet-skiing all the way to the North Pole from his tropical vacation 
 
 Come back to Santa's Village every day to see the newest games and scenes 
 
 Help the elves get ready across all your devices 
 
 Download the Chrome extension for easy Santa tracking from your browser 
 
 After 11 months soaking up the sun in the tropics, Santa and his elves are back at the North Pole getting ready for Christmas Eve. In addition to making toys, they need to clear the snow off 23 elf homes, candy factories and command centers in Santa’s Village To join in the flurry of preparations for Christmas Eve, visit the Village every day through December 24. You'll have the chance to join the elves as they catapult presents and race with reindeer —and you'll be able to send holiday wishes to friends and family from Santa himself. The elves make a little more progress each day, so be sure to stop by the Village to see the latest.Meanwhile, a team of Google engineers are working hard to track Santa’s sleigh with the most advanced maps and holiday technology available. On December 24, grab some cookies and apple cider and settle down in front of your computer, phone or TV to follow the big guy across the globe with our Santa Tracker. See where Santa’s going, the number of presents he’s delivered, and what he’s thinking throughout the evening.Keep up the holiday cheer across all of your screens. Once the elves approve, we’ll launch the Google Santa Tracker app for Android in mid-December. Use your phone for on-the-go flight practice with the elves or cozy up near the fireplace with your tablet to follow Santa around the world as he delivers presents Christmas Eve. If you have Chromecast, cast from the Santa Tracker Android app to explore the Village or track his route right from your TV. Or, worried you’ll forget the big day? Download the Chrome extension to count down to Santa’s takeoff while browsing the web for holiday gifts.Be sure to come back to Santa’s Village each day to find new ways to celebrate—and from all of us at Google, happy holidays! ||||| Google Inc. GOOGL, +1.74% announced late Monday that it will create a new organizational structure, with an umbrella company dubbed Alphabet Inc. that co-founder and Chief Executive Larry Page will lead. Sundar Pichai, who was in charge of two of Google's most important products, Android and Chrome, will take over the CEO role at Google. "Alphabet Inc. will replace Google Inc. as the publicly-traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights," Page said in Monday's announcement. Google shares gained 4% in late trading after closing with a 0.2% loss at $663.14. 
 
 Read the full story: Google announces new structure, with Alphabet as parent firm
– Big changes at Google today: Its founders have a created a parent company for it called Alphabet and will focus on running that. Google itself will still exist, but in a "slimmed down" version that will be run by current Google exec Sundar Pichai, writes Larry Page in a company blog post. Co-founder Sergey Brin will be Alphabet's president. Essentially, Google is separating its "search, YouTube, and other Web companies from its research and investment divisions," explains Bloomberg. Google is, in fact, disappearing in one sense: Alphabet will replace it as the publicly traded entity, reports MarketWatch. Shares were up nearly 6% on news of the restructuring. Part of Page's explanation: "What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead. What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), and Calico (focused on longevity)." Also included will be the X lab and Wing, the company's drone project, reports the Wall Street Journal. “Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related,” writes Page.