Google IPO Sale May Reignite Tech Sector

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: Internet search provider Google Inc registered Thursday to sell shares of its stock on the open market in a hotly anticipated initial public offering that will seek to raise $2.7 billion and could reignite the technology business boom that stalled four years ago.

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing remarkable for its tone of quirky idealism, the search-engine company said it would break with some traditional IPO practices by auctioning shares to ordinary investors and establishing a dual-class share structure that is rare in the technology industry. The auction is intended to dampen speculative trading by setting a more rational price, while control of voting stock will enable Google’s founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, to resist a narrow focus on quarterly results, the company said in its filing.

“If opportunities arise that might cause us to sacrifice short-term results but are in the best long term interest of our shareholders, we will take those opportunities,” Page promised in a founders’ letter to prospective shareowners. “We will have the fortitude to do this. We would request that our shareholders take the long term view.”

Google’s filing, which didn’t specify an IPO date, said the Mountain View, Calif, company would list its shares on either the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange. And for the first time Thursday, the company disclosed financial data, revealing that it earned $105.6 million on revenues of $961.9 million in 2003, up from $99.7 million on revenues of $347.8 million the prior year. For the first three months of this year, Google posted earnings of $64 million on revenues of $389.6 million, more than double its $25.8 million on revenues of $178.9 million last year, exceeding the estimates of many investment professionals.

“Their revenue growth is extraordinary, and the profitability is solid,” said Paul F Deninger, chairman and chief executive of Broadview Holdings of Waltham, a firm that advises technology companies on mergers and acquisitions. “These guys are investing intensely in order to maintain their technology leadership.”