Thursday marks the sixth anniversary of the Google's IPO. Although the company's share price is down about 20 percent this year, it's up an amazing 389 percent since the initial public offering on August 19, 2004.
Since then, it has become synonymous with search. It is both a noun and a verb. And, it has revolutionized the Internet.
Google got its start as a 1996 research project by a pair of Stanford PhD students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
Two years later, it was incorporated in a friend's garage. And in 1999, Google received $25 million in funding from Silicon Valley venture capital firms. Five years later, the company went public, selling shares in a unique Dutch auction.
Although Google's IPO got off to a rough start, it ranked among the biggest technology offerings ever. Shares originally priced at $85, about 25 percent below the intended price. And the size of the offering dropped by the same figure, to 19.6 million shares. The IPO gave Google a $23 billion market capitalization.
Google's stock hit $700 a share in October, 2007, the same month the Dow reached its all-time high (although Google trades on the Nasdaq).
The company has become much more than a search engine, introducing many new products, such as Google Maps, Google News, and Gmail. As part of its expansion, Google has acquired other businesses, including YouTube, DoubleClick, and AdMob.
At the recent Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, Calif,CEO Eric Schmidt said Google is now acquiring, on average, two companies a month.
What follows are some facts and figures about Google, as it celebrates its sixth birthday as a public company.
Stock Performance & Valuation
- Close on August 17, 2010: $490.52
- Median price target: $630 (Source: Thomson One)
- All time intraday high: $747.24 on November 7, 2007
- All time closing high: $741.79 on November 6, 2007
- P/E: 21.22
- Price / Book: 4.48x
- TEV / EBITDA (Latest Twelve Months): 13.98x
Stock Price Percent Change
- YTD: -21%
- 1-Year: +10%
- 3-Year: -2%
- 5-Year: +72%
Revenue:
- 2009 Revenue: $17.5 billion of which 47.3% was domestic
- Latest Qtr: $5.1 billion (Q1 2010)
- Google beat revenue estimates for 6 of the past 8 quarters
- Forecast 2010 Revenue: $21.2 billion
- Revenue Growth (2009-10): 21%
Earnings:
- 2009 EPS: $23.20
- Google beat annual EPS estimates for 4 of the past 5 years
- Latest Qtr: $6.45 (Q2 2010)
- Beat quarterly EPS estimates for 7 consecutive quarters, missed the last one
- Forecast 2010 EPS: $27.28
- EPS Growth (2009-10): 18%
Analysts' Recommendations:
- Strong Buy: 15
- Buy: 16
- Hold: 6
- Sell: 0
- Underperform: 1
Three Highest Paid Executives
- Nikesh Arora
- President of Global Sales Operations & Business Development
- He is responsible for the business across 28 offices in Europe, Middle East, and Africa Operations with a team of over 2,500 people
- Mr. Arora joined Google in 2007 and is based in London
- Total Annual Compensation: $26.3M
- Patrick Pichette
- Chief Financial Officer, Principal Accounting Officer and Senior Vice President
- Total Annual Compensation: $24.7M
- Robert Alan Eustace
- Senior Vice President of Engineering & Research
- Total Annual Compensation: $15.2
Source:CNBC Analytics, Capital IQ and Thomson Reuters
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