Google insiders cash in on company's lofty stock price

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) _ Google Inc. calls its headquarters the ``Googleplex,'' but it's starting to resemble Fort Knox as new wealth has poured in from the stock sold by the company's

Friday, December 2nd 2005, 12:16 pm

By: News On 6

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) _ Google Inc. calls its headquarters the ``Googleplex,'' but it's starting to resemble Fort Knox as new wealth has poured in from the stock sold by the company's insiders.

As of late November, a total of 14 Google executives and directors had pocketed a combined $4.3 billion by selling 18.6 million of their shares so far this year, according to Thomson Financial.

The biggest winners have been Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who have each collected nearly $1.3 billion by selling 5.3 million of their individual shares in an automated trading program.

Even after those sales, Securities and Exchange Commission records show Page and Brin still owned another 33 million Google shares _ stakes currently worth more than $13 billion apiece.

The other nine-figure windfalls uncovered in Thomson Financial's review include: Omid Kordestani, Google's senior vice president of sales, $559.6 million; Ram Shiriram, a Google director who was among the company's earliest investors, $442.5 million; Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, $344.7 million; and David Drummond, Google's vice president of corporate development, $118.7 million.

Google also added another $4 billion to the company's coffers in a follow-up offering of its stock completed in September.