WSJ (sub required) breaks the story with a hat tip to CNBC:
NEW YORK — Google Inc. is delaying its IPO by a week because of logistical problems related to institutional investors registering to bid on the shares, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The delay isn’t being caused by a technological problem or a lack of bidders, the person stressed. Rather, the process of registering bidders for the auction-style IPO is taking longer than anticipated, the person said.
Part of the problem, the person said, was that Google’s IPO, which is being led by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse Group’s Credit Suisse First Boston, is being run through an auction format that had never been tried before. “It’s all new,” the person said. “We just hit a speedbump.”
News of the possible delay was first reported by CNBC.
Officially, Google had never set a date for the deal, though people familiar with the matter had pegged the date for next week. What’s more, Google had said it would be about a week from the time it activated the Web site on which investors can register until they priced. That site was activated last Friday.
Interesting that this is a one source story.
Update: The buzz on this is pretty negative, I sense folks want to believe the mighty has stumbled.
So, what we’re supposed to believe is that getting people registered at any price they want to name for the most hyped IPO in at least 5 years is purely a logistical issue.
“The delay isn’t being caused by a technological problem.” Excuse me, but why isn’t ipo.google.com technological?
This IPO is a Dutch auction three orders of magnitude larger than any other ever and with 10 times the number of underwriters. No human being (and no five, 50, or 500 human beings) could write the software for this offering that would work the first time.
This is the same marketing spin as they tried on orkut. That wasn’t credible for too long either.
We could take this at face value. So may brokerages in the mix.
Btw Battelle, nice interview this AM with Corey Johnson.
Look at how NVT was recieved by the market with its IPO this morning. Internet IPOs are not dead.
Meant to say so many brokerages in the mix that snaffus and some disorganization could be expected.
This is not a big deal in my opinion.