They include an e-mail service, Gmail, and an online shopping arm called Froogle.The tech sector has been starved of major IPOs since 2000, when AT&T floated its wireless phone subsidiary. Since then, Silicon Valley has seen the loss of 200,000 jobs and a tenfold increase in office vacancies.. A little-invoked law dating back to 1934 requires any US company with 500 shareholders and $10m in assets ­ a threshold Google reached last year ­ to disclose its assets to the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the SEC filing, Google earned $105.6m on revenues of $962m in 2003. In the first quarter of 2004, it posted a profit of $64m, more than doubling its performance in the same period last year.Google has added several new products as speculation of a flotation has mounted in recent months.

Analysts believe the company is worth between $20bn and $25bn, though the auction sale may push the price much higher. The filing revealed that Mssrs Page, 31, and Brin, 30, own 77.1 million Class B shares ­ about one-third of Google. The Silicon Valley venture capitalists Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which together invested £25m in Google in 1999, each have almost 24 million Class B shares.Last night’s announcement was widely anticipated because it coincided with a deadline obliging Google to divulge basic financial data for the first time. Google, the internet’s leading search engine, filed its much-anticipated plans for a initial public offering last night, igniting widespread excitement about a possible recovery in the technology sector four years after the bursting of the dot bubble.
The Silicon Valley company, which has gone from garage start-up to household word in just five years, said it hoped to raise up to $2.7bn (£1.5bn) using an auction system designed to make more shares available to individual investors, who often lose out to institutions in popular IPOs. I think the chances are evens at some point in the next two years.”He said house prices were as much as 40 per cent over-valued, adding that a crash could sending them tumbling by 20 per cent – equivalent to the gains of the past two years.This would wipe as much as 1.25 per cent off economic growth – equivalent to £12.5bn in cash terms but not enough to deliver a recession. It was ruled out by the Competition Commission and our market share is bigger than Lloyds, so it wouldn’t happen,” he said..

Fears of a slump in house prices grew yesterday as figures showed a surge last month in prices and mortgage debt, and a leading think-tank said there was an “evens” chance of a crash within two years. We had a dress rehearsal with Lloyds TSB trying to buy Abbey. “There are no bargain-basement prices on good quality banks, but there is do-ability around pricing,” he said.Last year RBS bought five US banks to expand its Rhode Island-based Citizens Financial Group, which it acquired in 1998, and in February it agreed to buy the credit-card unit of Connecticut-based People’s Bank for $2.66bn to gain 1.1 million new customers in New England.However, as far as the UK is concerned Mr Goodwin ruled out any bid for domestic rival Abbey National or the life assurer Standard Life, Europe’s biggest mutual assurer, which plans to float its shares.”We would not be allowed to buy Abbey. All we want is to make sure RBS staff can earn a proper living wage.”The bank’s chairman, Sir George Mathewson, yesterday claimed any staff who were not getting a wage rise were either underperforming or at the top of their salary scale, which he said was up to 20 per cent above the national average.However, inside the AGM there was little dissent from shareholders, who voted almost unanimously for a final dividend of 35.7p, making a 15 per cent increase in the total payout to 50.3p – the same rate of increase for each of the past 11 years, as they heard that the company’s successes were on track to continue.Shortly before the meeting Mr Goodwin said attention was now being focused on acquisitions in the US, where he said some prices were justifiable. “Bank clerks traditionally are not a militant group but many of our members are disgruntled and angry that up to 25,000 staff will not get a pay rise to keep up with inflation, and 4,700 will be getting no pay rise at all,” said Rob MacGregor, Unifi’s national officer.”With a bank that is making such huge profits we could have asked for a double-digit rise or an inflation-busting award but we haven’t. It was hardly the most militant of protests but it was enough to unnerve some shareholders as they gathered for the annual meeting of Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh yesterday.
Up to 40 placard-waving bank workers and representatives from their union, Unifi, lobbied outside the Edinburgh International Conference Centre protesting at a wage increase of less than £1 a week for thousands of employees of Britain’s second-biggest lender, which recently announced record pre-tax profits of £7.1bn.Their anger has been fuelled by revelations that RBS chief executive Fred Goodwin received an annual bonus of £990,000 as part of a total salary and bonus package of £1.9m for 2003, plus shares worth about £1.3m. One, Mr Provost, said: “I have enjoyed crossing swords with you.”.

Mr Barrett said the bank was attempting to be “humanitarian” rather than “thuggish” in its transfer of jobs to Asia.Sir Peter, 69, who was overseeing his last AGM before standing down in December, received good wishes from some of the shareholders who are regular attendees at the annual meetings. Our chief executive’s pay is very closely related to performance. There is a lot of gearing in it and we are happy to pay for good results,” Sir Peter said.The bank’s management, which is generally well regarded in the City, saw 93 per cent of shareholders vote in favour of its remuneration report.Some shareholders voiced concern over outsourcing of jobs to India. “These cheques drop through the letterbox and you don’t know if people can repay it. Are you going to stop sending them out?” Ms Gibbs asked.Sir Peter Middleton, the chairman of Barclays, attempted to defend Barclaycard’s rates, saying they reflected “the risk of lending”.