Family Learning Center

Posts Tagged ‘Term Strategies’

Larry and Sergey to give up voting control in Google

Google revealed a plan today for co-founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin to sell off some of their company stock, with the end result that the pair’s voting power will drop below 50 percent.

The news was revealed in a regulatory filing disclosing a plan that Page and Brin made last November to sell off about 5 million shares each. It’s described “as part of their respective long-term strategies for individual asset diversification and liquidity.” The sale, which will take place over five years, will decrease their voting power from 59 percent to 48 percent.

So Page and Brin are still going to carry a lot of weight, to say the least, but for the first time it will be possible for the other shareholders to band together and outvote them.

Read the whole story…

Only 17 venture capital firms raise money in Q3 — fewest in 15 years

Venture capitalists are a breed in decline.

Just 17 venture capital firms raised new funds in the third quarter of 2009, the smallest number of number of firms in any quarter since the third quarter of 1994, according to new data released by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).

While venture capital firms typically raise money every three or four years, and so a single quarter represents only a snapshot, the historically speaking very low number of firms raising money shows just how much of a crunch the industry is in right now.

We’ve talked about the reasons before: Venture firms saw their heyday in the late 1990s when international investors rush to give them money, lured by the impressive profits produced by the Internet boom (including the IPOs of companies from Cisco to eBay). But the surge of new VC entrants meant more competition, which lowered the overall profits, and we’re seeing the fallout now.

Only $1.6 billion was raised by the 17 firms in the third quarter, which is the lowest level of dollars committed since the first quarter of 2003 when $938 million was raised.

However, this may represent the bottom. “Anecdotally we are hearing that fundraising activity is accelerating as more firms that were waiting for economic recovery are beginning to formally seek commitments,” said Mark Heesen, president of the NVCA. “The reality, however, is that many limited partners are still determining their long term strategies in wake of the past year’s financial crisis and that slows the process down considerably. We expect commitment levels to remain modest for the remainder of 2009 with gradual increases beginning in 2010.”

Read the whole story…