谷歌股票拆分真相

    我们没法责怪谷歌（Google）首席执行官拉里•佩奇出尔反尔。要知道，早就九年前谷歌准备上市之际，佩奇就在致未来投资者的信中表示，谷歌将在很多方面特立独行，具体包括：谷歌将专注于用户和长期结果；它的管理架构将与众不同；公司将遵守“不作恶”这个听来有些古怪的座右铭——至少是遵循该公司对这一箴言的诠释；而且谷歌还有志于使世界变得更美好。即便股东对此有什么意见，他们也没有什么办法：谷歌将采取双重股权结构，确保佩奇与联合创始人谢尔盖•布林以及时任首席执行官的埃里克•施密特仍然具有投票控制权。

    一年前，佩奇提出一项股票拆分计划。它将创造出一种没有投票权的股票类型，旨在强化和扩大创始人的过半数控制权。这个计划的细节晦涩难解，但效果很明显，即佩奇和布林将继续在谷歌当家做主，虽然他们目前仅持有谷歌约15％的股份。

    不出所料，谷歌此举在主张股东权利的人士中间遭到了普遍的批评。毕竟，谷歌的新股股东们除了能卖掉该股票外，几乎就没别的权利了。美国马萨诸塞州一个养老基金起诉，阻止这个股票拆分计划，称谷歌创始人及董事会违反了对股东的信托责任。

    上周日晚，谷歌董事会批准了和解该案的一项提议。和解的具体细节十分复杂，但本质上是要求谷歌在新股价值低于该公司其它股票的情况下对新股股东予以补偿。如果这项计划获得法院批准，谷歌就有希望继续推进它的股票拆分计划。

    佩奇不民主的公司治理风格并没有影响到公司的业绩。如果在谷歌上市时花1,000美元购买这家公司的股票，这笔投资到现在的价值就会接近10,500美元。谷歌的股票本周二收盘价超过每股900美元，仅略低于其历史最高水平——920美元。因此，这家公司的市值已经接近3,000亿美元。佩奇去年宣布颇具争议的股票拆分计划以来，谷歌的股价又上涨了38％。谷歌的股东或许是被剥夺了投票权，但他们高兴着呢。

    但是，这并不是说谷歌树立了一个好榜样。2004年，谷歌决定采用双重股票结构，而这种安排在当时的科技界可谓闻所未闻。谷歌开了这个先河之后，团购网站Groupon、社交游戏公司Zynga以及社交网络Facebook等公司纷纷效仿，使创始人和早期投资者得以掌控公司的命运。然而，这些后来者眼下的股价都大大低于发行价。这些公司的股东们现在都追悔莫及，只怪自己当初太轻信公司创始人的智慧。而且他们除了卖掉自己持有的股份外，没有任何办法来发泄自己的不满。

    谷歌的故事告诉我们，股东权利与股东回报并不一定密不可分。不过，那些规模相对较小的公司眼下的困境表明，硅谷把赌注都押在创始人身上，任其一手遮天的做法仍然充满了风险。（财富中文网）

    译者：项航

    You can't blame Google CEO Larry Page for not being consistent. As Google prepared to go public nine years ago, Page detailed in a letter to prospective investors the many ways in which Google would be unconventional. It would focus on users and on long-term results; it would have an unusual management structure; it would abide by a wacky "don't be evil" motto -- or at least, by how Page & Co. interpreted it; and it would aspire to make the world better. Oh, and if shareholders didn't like any of this, there wasn't much they could do about it: Google would have dual stock class structure that ensured that Page and co-founder Sergey Brin, as well as then CEO Eric Schmidt, would retain voting control.

    A year ago, Page sought to strengthen and extend the founders' majority control, proposing a stock split that would create a new class of stock with no voting rights. The details were arcane but the effect clear: Page and Brin would continue to call the shots, even though they currently own about 15% of Google's (GOOG) equity.

    Not surprisingly, advocates of shareholder rights universally panned the move. After all, the owners of Google's new shares would have few rights beyond their ability to sell their shares. A Massachusetts pension fund sued to block the split, alleging the founders and the board had breached their fiduciary duty to shareholders.

    On Sunday night, Google's board approved a proposed settlement of the lawsuit. The particulars of the settlement are complicated, but it essentially calls for Google to compensate the owners of the new class of shares if those shares fall in value below those of Google's other shares. If a court approves the plan, the stock split is likely to go forward.

    Page's undemocratic style of governance has hardly been a handicap. A $1,000 investment in the company at the IPO would now be worth about $10,500. Google shares closed above $900 on Tuesday, just shy of their all-time high of $920, giving the company a market value of nearly $300 billion. Since Page announced the controversial stock split last year, shares have risen 38%. Google's shareholders may be disenfranchised, but they are not unhappy.

    None of this is to say that Google has been setting a good example. When it decided on a dual-stock structure in 2004, the move was virtually unheard-of in tech. Google made it fashionable, and companies like Groupon (GRPN), Zynga (ZNGA), and Facebook (FB) followed suit, giving their founders and early investors control over their destiny. All are trading well below their offering prices. All have unhappy shareholders who now wish they hadn't placed so much faith in the wisdom of those companies' founders. There's not much they can do now to register their discontent other than, of course, sell their shares.

    Google's story demonstrates that shareholder rights and returns do not necessarily go hand in hand. But the struggles of lesser tech companies suggest that Silicon Valley's bet on founder control remains fraught with peril.