Google IPO mania slows SEC Web site
Intense interest in the search king's initial public offering slows the Securities and Exchange Commission's Web site to a crawl.
Keynote Systems, an Internet performance measurement company, said Friday that Google's IPO registration filing increased traffic to the SEC's site by 900 percent, leading to a significant slowdown. From 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. it took as long as 45 seconds to download the SEC home page compared with the usual four seconds. During that hour, about 80 percent of the Web surfers who tried to download the SEC homepage were unsuccessful.
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| Download the S-1 statement  Click here to download Google's S-1 filing. Caution: Large file. | | ||
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Keynote analyst Rookpak Patel said the hiccup was unusual.
"Government sites are very good about success rates, so this is definitely somewhat of an anomaly," Patel said in a statement. "Clearly, there is great interest in something newsworthy on the site--most likely Google's IPO filing."
The Internet search company filed documents with the SEC Thursday for an estimated $2.7 billion IPO. Timing, number of shares and the range in price for those shares were not disclosed.
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| Complete coverage Web search king plans to raise $2.7 billion | | ||
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One of the highlights of the filing was a letter from the co-founders to shareholders, which they called an "owner's manual," mapping out the company's credo as well as financial results. The company generated $961.9 million in revenue in fiscal 2003 and posted $105.6 million in net profit. During the most recent quarter, which ended March 31, Google collected $389.6 million in revenue and posted a $64 million profit.