Bloomberg reports that Google has hired Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to manage its initial public offering this year.
The sale by Google, the world's most used Internet search engine, would be the biggest IPO since CIT Group Inc.'s $4.87 billion deal in July 2002. It "will certainly be the deal of the year," said Sanford Robertson, who founded San Francisco-based investment bank Robertson, Stephens & Co. before starting private- equity firm Francisco Partners LP.
About a third of Mountain View, California-based Google may be sold in the IPO, giving the company a market value of about $12 billion, the bankers said. The company will probably register the shares for sale with the Securities and Exchange Commission this month and sell them by April, they said.
