At the close of markets today, Google Inc. will formally become a subsidiary of Alphabet, the holding company comprised of Google’s two co-founders, its chairman, legal boss and CFO.
O Is for Official: Google to Morph Into Alphabet Today
When markets close, $GOOG becomes Alphabet -- but nothing really changes.
Dan Kosmayer/Shutterstock
This is nothing new (or shouldn’t be) from what we’ve told you about Alphabet, the structure to separate Google’s moonshots from its core profitable business.
If all goes as planned, all of Google’s share of stock will be converted to the exact same number of Alphabet shares. The stock tickers for shares of Class C ($GOOG) and Class A ($GOOGL) stock will stay the same. So will the board. So will shareholder rights, a point of contention for Google shareholders since all of its controlling Class B shares are held very tightly by the very top executives.
The Wall Street maneuver doesn’t alter day-to-day operations at any of the companies. Though, as we’ve reported, the financial engineering will give Alphabet more room to justify its spending to investors, and more leverage to scoop up companies. Inside the corporate campuses the move may, if implemented as designed, give the companies more room to innovate and provide employees with more space to feel entrepreneurial.
Alphabet does not plan to share the financials of its companies, broken out from Google Inc., until January with its fourth quarter earnings. As of now, there are nine subsidiaries out there publicly, including Google Ventures, Google Capital and the Google now under Sundar Pichai. Alphabet may share more of them — today or later, but certainly at some point.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
