Google Plans Second Stock Offering

SAN FRANCISCO — Google Inc. makes raising money look as easy as pi.

A year to the day after its initial public offering, the Internet giant said Thursday that it would issue as many as 14.8 million new shares through a second stock sale, but the company left investors and analysts puzzling over how it planned to spend the cash raised.

In typical Google fashion, the offering included a bit of geek humor. Google said it would sell 14,159,265 shares to the public. That's a nod to pi, the number representing the constant ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Pi's first nine digits are 3.14159265.

In its registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google said its underwriters -- Morgan Stanley, Allen & Co. and Credit Suisse First Boston -- had the option to buy 600,000 shares in addition to the nearly 14.2 million shares to be offered to the public.

The sale could raise more than $4 billion for Google at the stock's current price, which is triple its IPO price of $85 a share. Raising that amount would leave the company with more than $7 billion in cash on hand. Google said in its SEC filing that it planned to use the money for capital expenses and potential acquisitions but had not committed to any particular deal.

A spokesman declined to elaborate. No sale date was set.

Google's reticence to discuss plans for the proceeds caused analysts to speculate about a wide range of targets that might lessen the search-engine company's reliance on Web ads that generate 99% of its revenue.

"It is a signal they're going to acquire companies," said Philip Remek, an analyst at Guzman & Co.

"I think it's a very necessary thing for them to do."

Potential buyout candidates floated by analysts included TiVo Inc., Chinese Web-search firm Baidu.com Inc., privately held Internet phone company Skype Technologies and Internet infrastructure firms VeriSign Inc. and Akamai Technologies Inc.

Analysts said Google's most likely move was to buy its way into developing international markets such as Russia and China, where other Internet giants are spending heavily. Yahoo Inc. last week said it would invest $1 billion in Chinese Internet portal Alibaba.com and merge their China-based operations.

Another possibility is a move into telecommunications systems, such as technologies for making phone calls over the Internet. Skype is an early leader in that area.