Google pre-IPO annual reports?

November 6, 2008 5:12 PM

Help! I'm looking for pre-IPO annual reports for Google. I realize that private companies aren't required to file their annual reports the same way that private companies do. Still, with google being, well... google, and their IPO being such a big deal, I thought they might have publicized some of their information at the time. Thanks for your help! At this point, I will even accept clues... P.S. Also, I wasn't sure which was the right category to post under, so please let me know if you have any suggestions about that. Thanks!

I've tired to "google" the question, and that's not working very well because the word "google" comes up in many other contexts where other companies' annual reports are mentioned. Even searching for "google inc." "annual reports" didn't get me very far.

posted by gigimakka to computers & internet (3 comments total)

Private companies do not provide annual reports or financial statements to the public. They only provide such to qualified shareholders/unit holders of their various rounds of private financing.

What you want to find is the Prospectus (aka the "Red Herring" Prospectus) for their Intial Public Offering (IPO).
posted by ericb at 5:34 PM on November 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

The best you are likely to do is the prospectus distributed to potential investors before their IPO. It's linked at the top of this letter they sent out to potential shareholders.
posted by Good Brain at 5:36 PM on November 6, 2008

Google did an IPO specifically because they got big enough that the SEC was going to requrie financial disclosure anyway. They figured that if they were going to be required to disclose, they might as well trade publicly as well.
posted by b1tr0t at 10:15 PM on November 6, 2008