Chapter 314 Google goes public
On August 18, Google lowered the price range of its stock issuance price to US$85 to US$95, and also reduced the number of shares issued from the original 25.7 million shares to 19.6 million shares.
Initially, Google's IPO plan was to set the issue price at $108-$135 and issue 25.7 million shares.
However, after lowering the issuance price of the stock, it also reduced the issuance of public shares - Google's original shareholders (shareholders before the IPO) will sell 5.5 million shares, which is less than half of the original plan of 11.6 million shares. Above, 14.1 million new shares will be sold at the same time, as originally planned.
In fact, Google’s listing this time became the first company to be listed on Nasdaq with a dual-stock structure.
Everyone is very familiar with the form of dual-stock structure. Many technology companies that followed IPOs used this shareholding structure.
But before Google, no company had ever been listed on the U.S. stock market in this way.
Before Google, the general practice in the American stock market was equal pay and equal rights for equal shares—one vote per share.
But Google adopts two types of models: A and B. Type A stocks are sold to the public, and type B stocks are held by "own people." The voting rights of type B stocks are 10 times that of type A.
This structure allows Google's founders, who own nearly 33% of B shares, to firmly control the company's destiny.
In an interview, founder Larry admitted:
"The influence of new investors on the company's strategic decisions will be much less than the influence they have on other listed companies."
The subtext of this sentence is - buy my stocks and forget about the rest.
“Giving super voting rights to a small group of investors fundamentally
It's unfair to say..."
Ann Younger, executive of the American Institutional Investors Council, publicly told the media:
"That's almost un-American!"
In the end, Google's series of performances, words and deeds during the IPO process angered institutional investors.
Even most of the media is on the side of criticizing Google.
"Think twice before buying Google stock", "Google IPO? A series of articles with eye-catching titles such as "No Thanks", "Google IPO: Not Feeling Lucky", "Google the Stock: Investors Need to Beware" were published in various newspapers and periodicals in the United States and spread across the country.
Finally, in order to increase people's confidence in Google's stock listing, at the suggestion of Moritz, CEO of Sequoia Capital, Google lowered the IPO pricing range to US$85-95 per share, which can be seen as a move to Wall Street capital. A certain degree of compromise among the forces.
As a result, one could see a significant increase in the stock price on the first day of trading, and investors would be happy with Google.
At the same time, Moritz also said that Sequoia Capital will continue to hold the Google stocks they originally planned to sell, which also enhances people's confidence-the final reduction in the number of shares issued by Google is due to the original reduction of Sequoia Capital's holdings of that share.
The subscription form for Google's stock issuance is also very special. It uses a Dutch auction, where the price is auctioned from high to low.
The general method is that institutions participating in stock subscriptions first open special subscription accounts with their underwriters.
When the auction begins, all institutions will use their own accounts to submit secret bids—including the price at which they will buy the shares and the number of shares they will buy.
This bid range is naturally the stock issuance price range of US$85-95 set by Google.
In the end, statistics will be calculated, and transactions will start from the highest bid first; the remaining stocks will then be traded with the second highest bid...
This continues until all shares on offer have been subscribed.
In the original time and space, this Dutch auction of Google's stock was not considered a success.
Because in the end, although they completed the stock subscription, all transactions were sold at the lowest price of $85.
But the difference this time is that Rich23 Capital subscribed for 10 million of the total 19.6 million Google public shares on offer at a price of US$85.5, and successfully completed the subscription.
Therefore, although the issue price of Google's shares is still US$85, Rich23 Capital relied on this bidding strategy to buy 10 million shares of Google's Class A common stock for a total of US$855 million.
In this way, plus the 20 million shares of Google previously held by DS Capital, Barron owns a total of 30 million shares, accounting for 11% of Google's total share capital at this time!
On August 19, Google stock was officially listed for trading.
After the call auction was completed, Google's stock price opened $15 higher immediately after it was listed for trading, opening at $100.01.
Within a few minutes of opening, the stock price fell to $97.48, but soon began to rebound and has remained above $100...
It finally closed at US$100.3, US$15.3 higher than the issue price of US$85, an increase of 18.04%.
At this price, Google's market value is as high as US$27.253 billion, surpassing General Motors.
The value of the 20 million Google shares held by DS Holdings exceeds US$2 billion.
According to the historical trend of Barron's previous life, Google's stock price will fluctuate above $100 from now to September, but by November, it will begin to approach $200, doubling directly.
Of course, whether it is DS Holdings or Rich23 Capital, their investment in Google will not be a short-term investment, but a long-term holding.
The advantage of this is that you can not only hold Google's stocks and enjoy the dividends of its long-term growth, but also obtain funds by mortgaging these stocks when funds are needed - because of its excellent long-term growth, even The loan amount can be continuously increased.
…
"Baby, you look so beautiful today."
Barron, who was sitting at the dining table, saw Bonnie walking downstairs in business attire and high heels, praising his girlfriend.
"Just today?"
"Oh, I am so charming every day, but today I am particularly radiant. I suspect it is because I last night..."
Hearing Barron's words, Bonnie gave him a coquettish look.
After dinner, Bonnie left the villa first and went to work.
Barron gave Alya a gesture and then entered his study.
"Your Highness the Duke..."
"Alia, do you have something to say to me?"
"I……"
Seeing Alya's hesitant expression, Barron sat on the sofa, patted his side and motioned for her to sit down.
After the girl sat down next to him, Barron looked at her delicate profile and said lightly:
"Are you worried about Mikhail?"
Alya glanced at Barron and asked softly:
"Your Highness the Duke, will you really cooperate with him to deal with Lafayette?"
"this matter?"
Barron reached out and touched Aliya's long brown hair, brought her closer to him, and said:
"What you are thinking is why I didn't agree to you to deal with Lafayette before, but now I agree to help Mikhail... right?"
Seeing the girl nodding slightly, Barron chuckled:
"Everything needs the right time. If you don't do it at that time, it doesn't mean that you can't do it now. Besides, isn't it also your idea to make Lafayette disappear forever? Maybe you should understand that I The reason I agreed to Mikhail was not entirely because of his conditions, but a large part of it was because of you..."
