August 22, 2004 5:36 PM
James Surowiecki, the author of The Wisdom of Crowds, weighs in on the Google IPO:
Wall Street can spin this however it wants. But Google went public without underwriting from a major investment bank, without handing out favours to well-connected executives and without dictating a price in the manner of Soviet central planners. Because it did, it now has hundreds of millions of dollars that it would not otherwise have had. By any standard, this was one IPO that worked.
Why Google's IPO was a success (08.22.2004)
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foov2:
Kudos to google for a successful IPO. Now what? Some say google goes to the moon and unseats EBAY in the auction market. Other says, it is overpriced here and goes to $40 in a year. As always, only time will tell.
Personally, I think it is wrong that the voting shares are still closely held by the management (their shares count for 10 votes each and the public shares count for 1). In my opinion, it should be illegal and/or not allowed to be listed on a public exchange.
Whatever.
Sun Aug 22 2004 6:40 PM
dhermesc:
They raised a lot of money but that doesn't mean it "worked". Give it a year and ask the INVESTORS if it "worked" or not.
Mon Aug 23 2004 5:42 AM
Paul:
Wall Street's monopoly on IPO's is over. I couldn't be more tickled.
Mon Aug 23 2004 2:14 PM
Mark Prince:
I'm not quite sure that I understand what James Surowiecki was talking about in his comment about the google ipo "success". It was underwritten by Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley as lead underwriters, two of the biggest underwriters that exist. In addition, the bidding process only prevented major firms from getting a large chunk of the ipo withot themselves working out the ipo price. All that they had to do was bid up the public auction process that google held, which they did because they have much deeper pockets than any private investor. So google's ipo was only a success at delaying the major firms from getting a bigger share of the offering earlier and at perhaps a more favorable price.
Fri Sep 10 2004 2:53 PM
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