Yahoo has an informal poll that shows the vast majority of respondents predicting a share price less than $80 on the first day of trading. (An $80 share price equates to a $21 billion market cap.)
The survey also refers to four other pricing benchmarks (quoting from the survey):
Google S-1 anticipates offer price between 108 and 135 per share
Standard & Poors estimates fair value price between 121 and 127 per share
MIT Tech Review most popular contract predicts market cap between 30B and 35B
Iowa Electronic Market most popular contract predicts market cap between 25B and 30B
Intrade has a number of futures-type contracts trading on the expected value of Google shares. Tonight, a contract that will pay $10.00 if Google's auction price is on or over $105 could be purchased for $7.90. The contract will be worthless if the auction price is less than $105, indicating fairly strong interest at that level. The contract on a $125 auction price was trading at just $1.50, indicating very low confidence that the resulting auction price would exceed $125.
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| Google's prospects from a Google user and independent investor |
Google share price estimates - 8/12/2004 08:29:00 PM
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Auction to Open on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 8/12/2004 02:37:08 PM
Google announced today that the auction is expected to begin at 9:00 a.m. EDT on Friday, August 13.
Any investor who intends to participate must first register and be issued a bidder ID. (Google has stated that the registration period would end at 5:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday, August 12.) After a bidder ID is obtained, the investor may place bids for the Dutch auction through his or her broker, if the investor meets the broker's eligibility requirements. Google also says they expect to close the auction and determine the IPO price "during the week of August 16, 2004." |
Recirculation of the Prospectus - 8/11/2004 04:24:01 PM
Google notified registered bidders via email that "material changes" have been made to the prospectus, and that it is being "recirculated." You can obtain the current version from www.ipo.google.com/data/prospectus.html.
While Google has specified that material changes to the prospectus may require bidders to "reconfirm" their bids, because the auction has not begun yet it appears that this is simply a notification that the investors should obtain the current version of the prospectus before placing bids. Google did not identify what changes were made to the prospectus. |
Bidder Registration Closing August 12, 2004; Auction Will Commence Soon Thereafter - 8/10/2004 06:51:24 AM
Google announced this morning that they will stop assigning bidder IDs at 5:00 p.m. EDT August 12, and that the auction "will commence soon thereafter."
"You must have a bidder ID if you intend to submit a bid." |
Small Investors and the $100 share price - 8/09/2004 02:45:49 PM
Continuing the march of negative press, the Wall Street Journal says individual investors are recoiling at the high expected price of Google shares. Continuing a pattern, it's not clear whether the investors interviewed are concerned with the ~$36 billion valuation of the company, or just have an irrational aversion to a triple-digit price per share.
After all, if you needed $1,000 in financing to build a chain of lemonade stands, does it really matter if you issue 100 shares for $10 each, or 10 shares for $100 each? Many investors interviewed in the popular media think $100 shares are much too expensive, but they're simply missing the point. The real question is whether your lemonade stands are worth $1,000. The WSJ article concludes with some analysts recommending bids ranging from $60 to $96, well below the low end of Google's estimated range of $108 to $135. The analysts cite the paucity of interest in the IPO, as well as the 20% decline in internet stocks in recent weeks. |
Yahoo/Overture dispute settled - 8/09/2004 02:30:05 PM
As www.buygoogle.com reported in June, Overture's lawsuit against Google looked serious. Google settled that today for around $300M. And they'll pay for the award by issuing 2.7 million more shares in the IPO. Since arch-rival Yahoo now owns Overture, Yahoo can add these 2.7 million shares to the 5.5 million it already owns.
Google had previously said that the Overture patent was invalid, but as discussed here, when you actually read the complaint and the patent (only a few pages), it sure looked valid to us. For more information, see Reuters article here. |
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