The company is planning to create a new class of non-voting capital stock, to be listed on Nasdaq under a yet-to-be-determined ticker. Existing stockholders will get one share of the new stock for every Google share they currently own. Google employees in the future will get non-voting shares.
In a letter to shareholders, co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin noted they are "halfway" through a plan to sell a "modest percentage" of their overall stock. The pair announced the plan in November, 2009 and say they'll end the sale in 2015. "We both remain very much committed to Google for the long term," the letter reads.
The stock split announcement came on the heels of the company's first-quarter 2012 financial results. Google's non-GAAP earnings per share hit $10.08 vs. The Street's estimate of $9.65. Gross revenues for the quarter were $10.65 billion, a 24% jump over the first quarter and 6.6% over the fourth quarter's $10.58 billion.
Google's stock was up about 0.5% in after-hours trading on the news.