Google, facing slowing growth amid a slump in advertising spending, is again considering acquisitions, CEO Eric Schmidt said.
"Acquisitions are back on," Schmidt, 54, said in an interview at an event in Pittsburgh this week. His company had more than $19 billion in cash and short-term investments at the end of its most recent quarter.
Schmidt's comments suggest Google's business is improving, giving the company confidence to spend on purchases, said Jeff Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in New York.
Google, the world's most popular Internet search engine, has relied on smaller acquisitions since buying DoubleClick for $3.2 billion in 2008 and YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006.
"It's definitely a sign that Google is seeing stronger cash flow," said Lindsay, who recommends buying the stock and doesn't own it. "In the down economy all of the Internet players, including Google, cut back on capital expenditures to preserve cash flow."
Google typically buys 10 to 12 companies a year, Lindsay said. The company acquires smaller rivals, including startups, to boost its technology development, he said.
This month, Google bought ReCaptcha, a company that helps prevent fraud and spam at Web sites such as Ticketmaster.com, for an undisclosed sum. In August, it agreed to buy video-technology company On2 Technologies for $106.5 million.
Google reported a sales gain of 2.9 percent last quarter — down from 39 percent a year earlier — as ads fetched lower prices and the recession crimped marketing budgets.
The company is also facing increasing competition from main rivals Yahoo and Microsoft, which agreed to combine their search businesses in July.
Google may buy wireless-technology providers and so-called cloud-computing companies to supplement its product lines, said Jim Friedland, an analyst at Cowen in New York.
The purchases might range from $10 million to $75 million, said Friedland, who rates the stock "buy" and doesn't own it.
Cloud-computing services let customers store and access data over the Internet.
Agencies
Showing posts with label Eric Schmidt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eric Schmidt. Show all posts
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
Google eyes smaller firms to acquire
Google Inc is looking to buy smaller technology companies to enhance its technology portfolio, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in an interview with the Fox Business network
Schmidt said Google plans to focus on the cloud, mobile, and open source distribution of software in the next year.
"We have been (looking to acquire)," Schmidt said. "We have been wandering around looking at all of the different companies.
With the big ones we haven't come across anything we've particularly liked. We are definitely talking to a number of smaller companies but we've done that routinely." "We primarily look for technology. It's a typical build versus buy.
How long does it take us to build it with our engineers, versus there are already engineers in this other company that have built this thing."
The chief executive's statements come as the Internet search giant's growth slows from double digit percentages amid global economic turmoil and a sharp, industry-wide decline in advertising.
On Tuesday Google's green energy czar Bill Weihl said the company is closing in on its goal of producing renewable energy at a price cheaper than coal.
Google, known for its Internet search engine, in late 2007 said it would invest in companies and do research of its own to produce affordable renewable energy -- at a price less than burning coal -- within a few years.
The often-quirky company cast the move as a philanthropic effort to address climate change, but the work is done by a unit of the for-profit corporation, Google.org, and Google investors will profit from any breakthroughs.
Google's investment has been modest, so far. The company has put less than $50 million into clean energy start-ups, while the efforts of Weihl's group are probably about $10 million or $20 million.
Schmidt said Google plans to focus on the cloud, mobile, and open source distribution of software in the next year.
"We have been (looking to acquire)," Schmidt said. "We have been wandering around looking at all of the different companies.
With the big ones we haven't come across anything we've particularly liked. We are definitely talking to a number of smaller companies but we've done that routinely." "We primarily look for technology. It's a typical build versus buy.
How long does it take us to build it with our engineers, versus there are already engineers in this other company that have built this thing."
The chief executive's statements come as the Internet search giant's growth slows from double digit percentages amid global economic turmoil and a sharp, industry-wide decline in advertising.
On Tuesday Google's green energy czar Bill Weihl said the company is closing in on its goal of producing renewable energy at a price cheaper than coal.
Google, known for its Internet search engine, in late 2007 said it would invest in companies and do research of its own to produce affordable renewable energy -- at a price less than burning coal -- within a few years.
The often-quirky company cast the move as a philanthropic effort to address climate change, but the work is done by a unit of the for-profit corporation, Google.org, and Google investors will profit from any breakthroughs.
Google's investment has been modest, so far. The company has put less than $50 million into clean energy start-ups, while the efforts of Weihl's group are probably about $10 million or $20 million.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Amid turmoil Google's top execs keep $1 salaries!
Google Inc Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin maintained their traditional salaries of $1 last year even as the value of their combined stakes in the Internet search leader plunged by nearly $26 billion.
The paltry paychecks, disclosed Tuesday in a regulatory filing, come as no surprise because Schmidt, Page and Brin have insisted on their annual salaries remaining at $1 since Google went public in 2004.
The trio also don't get any bonuses or the stock awards that most of Google's other 20,000 employees receive.
That's because Page and Brin, who founded the company in 1998, already are Google's largest stockholders with about 29 million shares apiece.
Page, 36, and Brin, 35, made Schmidt, 53, a major shareholder when they hired him as CEO in 2001.
Schmidt received perquisites valued at $508,763 last year, mostly to cover personal security bills totaling $402,562. Google also paid a total of $106,201 to fly his family and friends on airplanes chartered by the Mountain View, Calif.-based company.
Including his perks, Schmidt's 2008 compensation package edged up 6 percent from 2007 when his package totaled $478,662.
The Associated Press formula is designed to isolate the value the company's board placed on the executive's total compensation package during the last fiscal year. It includes salary, bonus, performance-related bonuses, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The calculations don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they sometimes differ from the totals companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which reflect the size of the accounting charge taken for the executive's compensation in the previous fiscal year.
Limiting their salaries to $1 didn't seem like a big sacrifice for Schmidt, Brin and Page until 2008. That's because they became multibillionaires as their holdings in Google soared eight-fold between the time of the company's initial public offering in August 2004 and the end of 2007.
Although all three men remain among the world's wealthiest people, they suffered a major setback last year. Combined, their fortunes plunged by a combined $25.8 billion, or nearly 56 percent, in 2008, as investors began to fret that Google would be hurt by the faltering economy.
Google held up better than many people feared as its revenue rose 38 percent to $21.8 billion, but the company's stock price still plummeted from $691.48 at the close of 2007 to $307.65 at the end of last year.
Google shares have rallied along with the overall market recently, closing Thursday at $347.17.
The steep decline in Google's market value prompted the company to recently decrease its employees' cost to exercise a total of 7.64 million stock options. The re-pricing gives the 15,642 who participated in the program a better chance to strike it rich in future years.
Signaling its intent to hand out even more stock options as it expands, Google wants to add another 8.5 million shares to the pool of available awards. The request will be voted on at the company's annual meeting May 7.
Other Silicon Valley billionaires, such as Yahoo Inc. co-founder Jerry Yang and Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, also have limited their salaries to $1 while serving as CEO.
But mogul CEOs haven't been as egalitarian. For instance, Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison pocketed a $1 million salary in the company's last fiscal year and received an additional 7 million stock options valued at $71.4 million when they were granted.
Agencies
The paltry paychecks, disclosed Tuesday in a regulatory filing, come as no surprise because Schmidt, Page and Brin have insisted on their annual salaries remaining at $1 since Google went public in 2004.
The trio also don't get any bonuses or the stock awards that most of Google's other 20,000 employees receive.
That's because Page and Brin, who founded the company in 1998, already are Google's largest stockholders with about 29 million shares apiece.
Page, 36, and Brin, 35, made Schmidt, 53, a major shareholder when they hired him as CEO in 2001.
Schmidt received perquisites valued at $508,763 last year, mostly to cover personal security bills totaling $402,562. Google also paid a total of $106,201 to fly his family and friends on airplanes chartered by the Mountain View, Calif.-based company.
Including his perks, Schmidt's 2008 compensation package edged up 6 percent from 2007 when his package totaled $478,662.
The Associated Press formula is designed to isolate the value the company's board placed on the executive's total compensation package during the last fiscal year. It includes salary, bonus, performance-related bonuses, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year. The calculations don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they sometimes differ from the totals companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which reflect the size of the accounting charge taken for the executive's compensation in the previous fiscal year.
Limiting their salaries to $1 didn't seem like a big sacrifice for Schmidt, Brin and Page until 2008. That's because they became multibillionaires as their holdings in Google soared eight-fold between the time of the company's initial public offering in August 2004 and the end of 2007.
Although all three men remain among the world's wealthiest people, they suffered a major setback last year. Combined, their fortunes plunged by a combined $25.8 billion, or nearly 56 percent, in 2008, as investors began to fret that Google would be hurt by the faltering economy.
Google held up better than many people feared as its revenue rose 38 percent to $21.8 billion, but the company's stock price still plummeted from $691.48 at the close of 2007 to $307.65 at the end of last year.
Google shares have rallied along with the overall market recently, closing Thursday at $347.17.
The steep decline in Google's market value prompted the company to recently decrease its employees' cost to exercise a total of 7.64 million stock options. The re-pricing gives the 15,642 who participated in the program a better chance to strike it rich in future years.
Signaling its intent to hand out even more stock options as it expands, Google wants to add another 8.5 million shares to the pool of available awards. The request will be voted on at the company's annual meeting May 7.
Other Silicon Valley billionaires, such as Yahoo Inc. co-founder Jerry Yang and Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, also have limited their salaries to $1 while serving as CEO.
But mogul CEOs haven't been as egalitarian. For instance, Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison pocketed a $1 million salary in the company's last fiscal year and received an additional 7 million stock options valued at $71.4 million when they were granted.
Agencies
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