Author: Barry Randall,
Crabtree Asset ManagementCovestor model: Crabtree Technology
Why did Google (GOOG) just announce the issuance of a class of stock with NO voting power? Why do rock stars marry supermodels?
Because they can.
When Google went public eight years ago, they did so with a dual-class structure that helped preserve the founders' voting control over the company. So this recent development came as no surprise. In fact, given Sergey Brin and Larry Page's famous self-absorption (e.g., "Do no evil"), it would come as no surprise to one day learn of an Onion-esque development whereby Google announces a special "class D" stock, the ownership of which requires you to pay Google a quarterly dividend. Hey, don't laugh: that's effectively what short-term Treasury bill investors are doing with inflation at 2%-3%.
But, you know, we're dealing with geniuses here. I mean, wouldn't you pay for the right to be associated with them?
The whole effort is a transparent attempt by Brin and Page to maintain their voting control over the company without having stock issued to employees slowly dilute their equity. The two men state as much in their "Founders' Letter" as they describe why these new non-voting class C shares are being issued as part of a stock split:
"These non-voting shares will be available for corporate uses, like equity-based employee compensation, that might otherwise dilute our governance structure."
A cynic could argue that given the founders' existing 57.7% voting interest in the stock (via their super-voting class B shares), the current single-vote class A shares don't really have any voting power anyway.
In a sense, what Google is doing is testing our concept of value. Since they aren't paying dividends, your hope as a new shareholder is that the company will increase in value, and therefore your undiluted share in that value will increase. But right now, investors can only afford a share, or 100 or 100,000. But not the whole thing: Google's market capitalization is around $200 billion , so no entity short of a sovereign nation could afford to buy it.