Google founders to surrender 10 Million shares

New York: Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who co-founded the online search engine Google in 1998, have planned to sell ten million shares of company in the next five years. This move would bring down the voting rights of the two founders to 48 percent, reports Economic Times.

Currently both of them hold about 59 percent of the total voting rights in Google, which consist of 57.7 million Class B shares, representing about 18 percent of its outstanding capital stock and approximately 59 percent of the voting power of Google's outstanding capital stocks. Once they sell the said amount of shares, duo will be remained with about 47.7 million Class B shares, accounting for nearly 15 percent of Google's outstanding capital stocks and "approximately 48 percent of the voting power of the outstanding capital stock.

The Internet giant, which went public in 2004, has two types of stocks-- the Class A stocks which are traded on the NASDAQ, and the Class B shares kept aside for the company insiders and have ten times more voting rights than the Class A stocks. Google filing said, "As part of a five-year diversification plan, Larry (Page) and Sergey (Brin) each intend to sell approximately five million shares." Page holds the post of President for Products and Brin, the President for Technology

It is being expected that these stock trading plans, which were adopted on November 30, 2009, will help in spreading out share trades over an extended period of time to reduce adverse market impact. Google spokesman said, "Because these plans were established well in advance of a trade, they also help avoid concerns about whether these officers had material, non-public information when they made a decision to sell their stocks."

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