Google raised $1.67 billion last night in its long-awaited IPO after slashing the price and size of an offer beset by missteps and poor market conditions.
Google sold 19.6 million shares at $85 each, the bottom of a much-reduced price range, making paper billionaires of its founders. Its shares, which will trade under the stock symbol GOOG, are expected to debut on the Nasdaq today.
The sale went ahead hours after Google slashed the size of its initial public offering nearly in half, dousing what had been touted as the hottest Internet IPO in years.
The IPO ranks as the fourth-largest in the United States this year, according to Dealogic, but it easily would have been the year's largest at the mid-point of its initial pricing range.
The company had initially expected to raise as much as $3.5 billion by selling shares for between $108 and $135 each in a Dutch auction.
On Wednesday, Google cut the range to between $85 and $95 a share, and also cut the number of shares on offer to 19.6 million from 25.7 million.
The IPO represents 7.2 per cent of the company's shares and values Google at $23.1 billion, well below the $38.7 billion market capitalisation of rival Yahoo.
The pricing revision came as Google disclosed in an amended filing that the US Securities and Exchange Commission had requested additional information about a recent Playboymagazine article featuring an interview with Google's co-founders.
The interview, at a time when companies preparing for an IPO hold a "quiet period", marked the latest hiccup for the unusual stock sale.
The IPO also bumped against a jittery market. Roughly 60 per cent of this month's IPOs have priced below their estimated range, according to Thomson Financial.
Many investors said Google's initial price range was overly optimistic in the first place, leaving them wary of investing.