Bronte Media

Google today announced that it was seeking to raise $4.2bn in a follow on offering. The $4.2bn would add to the roughly $3bn it has on hand at the present time.

In addition to the capital raising, Google has been quietly doubling its corporate development department in recent months. Although their acquisitions thus far have looked more like executive recruitment than corporate strategy, things are about to change. The prized China assets have mainly been taken - although they could look closely at the publicly listed portals, who have disappointed of late. There was a Tivo rumor but I highly doubt that would come about; no matter how hard you try to dress it up as TV search they are a consumer electronics manufacturer. The size of the raising has a telco feel about it, and Google has been about the only company that *hasn’t* been mentioned in association with Skype. Who knows. It’s just hard to think of Google as an acquirer of companies. Their engineering pride seems to run too deep to admit the value of buying instead of building.

Or maybe we are all thinking too hard; it is simply about having a bigger number than Yahoo! The raising wont go close to out chest-beating Microsoft, who has $60bn in cash and short term investments but it will comprehensively beat that annoying little Yahoo, who has about $3.5bn on hand. Shove that up your 19 billion document index!