The Hindu : Google to go public at $12 billion value

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 07, 2004

Business

Business

Google to go public at $12 billion value

NEW YORK JAN. 6. The Internet search giant Google Inc. will go public by April at a value of $12 billion, financial news service Bloomberg reported Monday.

The report said the Internet start-up company had hired Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to arrange the initial public offering that would raise as much as $4 billion by selling a third of the company to the public.

The sale by Google, the world's dominant Internet search engine, would be the biggest IPO since CIT Group Inc.'s $4.87-billion deal in July 2002. The company is expected to register the shares for sale with the Securities and Exchange Commission this month and sell them by April, the report said.

The sale of the company has been widely expected and has led some analysts to predict that it could spark off a new boom for technology stocks.

Google, which was founded by two Stanford University graduate students in 1998, uses complex algorithms to rank search results according to their popularity with other Web pages. It generates most of its revenue from a service known as sponsored-search advertising in which customers pay for the right to have their Web sites come up at the top of search results on terms related to their business. Google had estimated revenue of about $1 billion in 2003 and net income of about $200 million. — DPA

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