Google co-founder Sergey Brin has now parted with over $1 billion worth of shares in the search engine company. What a difference a year makes. In August 2004, Google went public, shepherded by CEO Eric Schmidt onto Wall Street…
Since that time, Google has handsomely rewarded its founders and insiders with a stock price that climbed from $85 to nearly quadruple in value.
The hundreds of insider sales since that time have made its founders very wealthy. SiliconValley.com has reported that Sergey Brin passed the billion dollar mark in shares sold recently. Larry Page, fellow founder of the search engine, has sold about $978.4 million himself.
The various sales that take place have been enabled by automatic sales plans, which operate in compliance with the SEC’s 10b5-1 rule. Sales of designated amounts of stock at set periods in time allow insiders to sell their shares without triggering concern among outside investors.
Could future sales be worth even more? Forbes has noted in its report ahead of Google’s earning announcement that analyst firm Piper Jaffray sees even brighter days ahead for the Mountain View company.
Piper Jaffray maintained an “outperform” rating and $365 target price on Google, saying it expects the Internet company to post a strong third quarter despite seasonality. “We believe Google’s monetization and traffic are continuing to grow above industry levels,” Piper analyst Safa Rashtchy wrote in a recent research note.
“We would be buyers of the stock at current levels ahead of the earnings release,” the research firm said.
Piper said new products from Google could provide additional advertising distribution channels. “Google has approximately 20 products in beta that range from GMail to Google Talk,” Piper said. The research firm believes that the beta products and continued product innovation from Google may further enhance Google’s appeal to advertisers in terms of driving traffic.
David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
