Google sells $4.18 billion in stock

Web search leader Google priced a follow-on stock offering at $295 per share, raising $4.18 billion in the largest high-tech secondary sale in nearly a decade, underwriters said on Wednesday. Google went public in August 2004 and announced the follow-on offering in a regulatory filing last month. It had previously said it expected $4.11 billion in net proceeds from a shelf offering of 14.16 million Class A shares.

The share offering is the largest U.S. high-tech secondary offering since at least 1996 and the largest overall since a follow-on stock sale by investment bank Goldman Sachs drew $4.51 billion in 2000, according to tracking firm Dealogic. Google shares came to market in August 2004 at $85 and touched a record high of $317.80 in July. The $4.18 billion in gross proceeds, combined with the nearly $3 billion in cash and marketable securities on hand at June 30, 2005, amount to a $7 billion fund Google can draw on for anything from acquisitions to research and development.