MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Aug 18, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Google (GOOG) announced today the initial public offering of 19,605,052 shares of Class A common stock, 14,142,135 of which are being sold by Google and 5,462,917 of which are being sold by certain stockholders of Google, at a price of $85.00 per share. The selling stockholders have granted the underwriters the right to purchase up to an additional 2,940,757 shares at the initial public offering price. The offering was made through an underwriting syndicate led by Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated and Credit Suisse First Boston LLC, who acted as joint book-running managers. Goldman, Sachs & Co., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Lehman Brothers Inc., Allen & Company LLC, J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., UBS Securities LLC, WR Hambrecht + Co., LLC and Thomas Weisel Partners LLC acted as co-managers. A copy of the prospectus relating to these securities may be obtained at www.ipo.google.com. Earlier Wednesday, Google significantly lowered its estimated per-share price range to between $85 and $95, down from the previous range of $108 to $135. In a move that should buoy prices, it reduced the number of shares to be sold to 19.6 million from 25.7 million. If the stock had debuted at the high end of the original estimate, it would have raised as much as $3.6 billion and given Google a market cap as high as $36 billion. In an e-mail to investors who successfully bid in the auction, Google said individual brokerages would notify them of how many shares they would be obligated to purchase at settlement, which is expected to be on Aug. 24.
Another article reported that there are now two new billionaires and 900 new millionaires in and around Mountain View, California . . . and 300 more who would have been if the stock price had been at its anticipated level. --John Bear, whose first-ever stock purchase, while in college, was $400 worth of Bzura Chemical. Within a year, it was worth $0.00.
