Google announced on Friday that it would officially reorganize into a new holding company, Alphabet Inc., with the first day of trading under the new structure scheduled for Monday, Oct. 5.
Mountain View-based Google announced in August that it was planning the change, providing its reasoning at the time for the reorganization. The reorganization was scheduled to take effect when the stock markets had closed for business Friday.
In the letter, Google co-founder Larry Page recalled the original founders letter that he and co-founder Sergey Brin wrote, referring to the then-fledgling Google as a non-conventional company, and a company that intended to avoid becoming conventional.
We did a lot of things that seemed crazy at the time, Page wrote in the August blog post. Many of those crazy things now have over a billion users, like Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, and Android. And we haven t stopped there. We are still trying to do things other people think are crazy but we are super excited about.
That s where the reorganization comes in. Google bets it can use the changed structure to highlight the profitability of its main Internet-based advertising business, as well as enable the growth prospects of projects that are more speculative and risky.
We ve long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes, Page wrote in the blog. But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant.
Google, along with its online advertising ventures, Search, Android and YouTube will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet.
Ventures that are far afield from the main Internet business, such as health care, life sciences, and longevity projects, will operate outside of the Google subsidiary and be owned by the Alphabet holding company. Sidewalk Labs, Nest, Google Ventures, Google Capital and the research lab Google X also will be in the Alphabet holding company.
Alphabet s chief executive officer is Page, and its president is Brin.
Investors might need to use a scorecard to keep track of the ticker symbol and trading changes, but here goes.
Google anticipates that shares of Google Class C Capital Stock and shares of Google Class A Common Stock will begin trading as Alphabet Class C Capital Stock and Alphabet Class A Common Stock, respectively, on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on Monday, Google said in a post on its investor page.
Shares of Alphabet Class C Capital Stock and shares of Alphabet Class A Common Stock will continue to be traded under the same ticker symbols under GOOG and GOOGL, respectively.
We are not intending for Alphabet to be a big consumer brand with related products, Page wrote. The whole point is that Alphabet companies should have independence and develop their own brands.
Photo caption: The Google logo. Photo credit: Getty Images.
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