Morning all

NEW YORK (AFX) - Google and its bankers set the price on one of the biggest dot-com initial public offerings of all time at 85 usd a share.

The pricing came in at the bottom of the range of 85 usd to 95 usd, which was cut from a previously estimated 108 usd to 135 usd.

With 19.6 mln shares in the offering, Google raises 1.66 bln usd through lead underwriters Morgan Stanley and CS First Boston.

The Mountain View, California, company's stock sale could deliver payoffs of about 50 mln usd to founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, about six years after they launched the company based on Web-search technology honed at Stanford University.

Google not only slashed the expected price tag on each share but trimmed the size of the deal from 25.7 mln shares as it faced a cool reception by investors, regulatory problems and a poor market for Internet stocks.

Francis Gaskins, an IPO analyst with IPODesktop.com, valued Google at 96 usd per share if it trades in line with rival Yahoo's price-to-earnings ratio and 78 usd per share if it is valued at eBay's multiple.

Even at its reduced price, the Google IPO ranks as one of the largest-ever for an Internet stock.

'I still plan to buy shares once it goes public,' said Ken Cusse, an individual investor from Rochester, New York. 'They have lots of cash, low expenses, and I don't know if anybody can catch them.'

The search engine serves around 200 mln requests for information a day. Newer offerings include a news-aggregation page, a price-comparison and shopping site called Froogle, and an e-mail service.

Throughout the run-up to its stock offering, Google warned investors that the price would be unlikely to jump after the stock-market debut, as was the case with virtually every hot IPO during the tech boom of the late 1990s.

'Buyers should not expect to be able to sell their shares for a profit shortly after our Class A common stock begins trading,' Google wrote in its IPO filing.

Google launched bidding by registered individual investors Friday, thereby entering the final stages of the experimental Dutch auction, which was meant to give individual investors a fairer chance at purchasing shares than is typical of the banker-directed IPO process.

As originally planned, Google expects to sell 14.1 mln shares of Class A common stock in the offering, the company said on its Web site Wednesday.

But in view of the new price range, shareholders are reducing the number of shares they are selling by more than half to 5.5 mln. The total number of shares to be sold has been reduced to 19.6 mln from 25.7 mln.

Google founders Page and Brin will now sell nearly 500,000 shares each, down from about 1 mln each, according to the company. CEO Eric Schmidt is to sell 369,000 shares, down from 738,000.

Venture firms Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital will not contribute to the sale compared with original plans for sales of about 2 mln shares each.

On Monday, a filing revealed the SEC is informally probing option grants to Google employees.

Google also said the SEC has requested additional information concerning the publication of a Playboy interview with Page and Brin in connection with a probe into whether the firm violated quiet-period restrictions.

The IPO of 19.6 mln shares amounts to about seven pct of the company's 271.2 mln shares.

The Google IPO consists of Class A shares, which have one-tenth of the voting power of the company's 237.6 mln Class B shares, which are held by insiders.

The dual-ownership structure is aimed at ensuring control remains in the hands of insiders.

Google founders Brin and Page are intended to control 38 pct of Google once it goes public. Together, the executive management team and directors as a group would control 61 pct of the voting power.

'New investors will fully share in Google's long-term economic future but will have little ability to influence its strategic decisions through their voting rights,' Google said in its IPO filing.

While the two-class ownership structure isn't used by Google rival Yahoo or by most other tech firms, 'similar structures are common in the media business and [have] had a profound importance there,' Google said in its IPO filing.

Good morning all

Morning punters!

SNI - this might perk it up, or is that "pork" it up? ;-)
http://www.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/20040819070000Z3893.html

HGM - loan to refinance debt.
http://www.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200408190700031114C.html

AEX - East African LNG.
http://www.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200408190700031130C.html

PCI - got a rig for their next Tunisian well. Norwell supervising.
http://www.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200408190700041152C.html

JJB - profit warning.
http://www.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200408190700051154C.html

TIO - little metal miner reporting interims. Complete punt as ever!
http://www.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200408190700081163C.html

CTV - acquisition. Might investigate this one further.
http://www.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200408190700111178C.html

EDG - it's all about Buzzard! Mind you, it's a fair size. ;-))
http://www.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200408190702011019C.html

CNE - don't want to do a SHEL! ;-)
http://www.moneyam.com/action/news/showArticle?id=417570

Currently long BFP, FTC, MNA, MNZS, PCI, PLR, TIG, short RST.

Have a dry Thursday - erm!

Morning all, looks like a positive start this morning :-)

Morning all. Thanks Martini, Big Al for comments. Dry Thursday though - where d'you live Big A ! :-))

Lobbed PCI +1.5, BFP +1.5, PLR +1.5, added MNA, re-entered PLR as it's strong.

Busy day so far and nicely profitable too.

jj - Port Seton at the mo.

morning all

I'm long AQP from earlier too.

Morning zarif