Google founders to sell 10 million shares worth $5.5 billion

Google's co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, plan to sell about 5 million of their Google shares worth $5.5 billion at current prices over the next five years, the company said in a regulatory filing yesterday.

Both co-founders currently hold about 57.7 million shares of Google's Class B common stock, approximately 18 per cent of outstanding capital stock and about 59 per cent of the voting power of the outstanding capital stock.

By offloading 5 million shares each, both Page and Brin eill see their combined ownership of stock outstanding will be reduced from 18 per cent to 15 per cent, according to the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (USEC) yesterday.

Based on yesterday's closing stock price, their stock sale would fetch them about $2.75 billion each.

"These pre-arranged stock trading plans were adopted in order to allow Larry and Sergey to sell a portion of their Google stock over time as part of their respective long-term strategies for individual asset diversification and liquidity," the filing said.

In November 2004, the co-founders of the Mountain View, California-based Google had filed with the USEC to offload 7.2 million shares of Class B common stock, each, over a period of 18 months as a part of a plan to gradually diversify their investment portfolios and liquidity.

According to the filing, Page and Brin will still hold 47.7 million shares collectively after the sale and retain majority voting power in the company.