August 5, 2004

Oversight

Golf's a person of indeterminate sex, but she does occasionally flatter, and man oh man. --Bear

Looks like attorneys for Google forgot to register around 27 Million shares of stock that they granted in options with the SEC.

Are you kidding me? To rectify this mishap, they are offering to repurchase all unregistered shares and options. The repurchase offer includes over 37 percent of the Class A shares they intend to IPO. Who misses this kind of thing?

I'd be damn grumpy if I'd early exercised my options only to have them offered for repurchase at the cost I paid plus interest (7% in California). The people who were too lazy, suspicious, etc. to early exercise are only being offered 20% of their strike price plus interest.

There's a joke in the valley that the people at Google are all drinking the proverbial kool-aid. I guess this will separate the true believers from the others.

The options are: 1. Take the "deal." 2. Hold out for the IPO and assume that once your shares are registered it'll all be cool. 3. Sue, now or later.

How many lawsuits do you predict?

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