Stefan Mileschin

Google has announced a stock split which appears designed to preserve the control of co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

According to Reuters, the move, which Google's board unanimously approved, came as the search engine made more cash than the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street predicted.

However, it also revealed a worrying 12 percent drop in search advertising rates for the second quarter in a row.

Google's corporate structure, gives the founders majority voting control of the company. But the stock split makes sure that the founders' power will not be diluted over the long term.

Page completed his second year in the chief executive's seat. It was a year which saw him write a cheque for $12.5 billion to take over Motorola Mobility. Less successful was his social network that competes with Facebook.

Google made $2.89 billion which was up from $1.80 billion in the same period last year.

Google executives did not talk about the Motorola deal, which is expected to close in the first half of this year. Page mentioned that he was looking at long-term goals that can take years to pay off, so we might have a long wait.

One of his past bets was buying YouTube for $1.65 billion and the development of its Android mobile software.

The new stock split will give him and co-founder Sergey Brin 56.7 percent of the voting control. They had better hope that they never fall out.

http://news.techeye.net/business/goo...l-keep-control