RPT-UPDATE 2-Google sells $4.18 bln of stock in landmark offer.Web search leader Google Inc.’s (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) follow-on stock offering priced at $295 per share, raising $4.18 billion in the largest secondary sale by a U.S. high-tech firm in nearly a decade, underwriters said on Wednesday.Google went public in August 2004 and announced the follow-on offering in a regulatory filing last month. It had previously said it expected $4.11 billion in net proceeds from a shelf offering of 14.16 million Class A shares.
The sale marked the largest secondary offering by a U.S. high-tech firm since at least 1996 and the largest overall since a follow-on stock sale by investment bank Goldman Sachs that drew $4.51 billion in 2000, according to tracking firm Dealogic.
Google shares came to market in August 2004 at $85 and touched a record high of $317.80 in July. Google stock closed at $303, down $8.68, or 2.8 percent, in regular session Nasdaq trading on Wednesday, ahead of the follow-on pricing. Learn more.