Legg Mason guru sets sights on Google IPO
27 May 2004
Legg Mason mutual fund manager Bill Miller is reportedly targeting the forthcoming initial public offering from search giant Google.
Mr Miller, famous for huge holdings of technology companies like Amazon.com, Ebay and Yahoo! Inc, announced this week that he plans to buy shares in Google Inc during the company's stock-sale auction.
He did not reveal how much he would bid during the IPO, but estimated that Google, the world's most popular internet search engine, is worth between the market value of Amazon.com Inc, about $18 billion, and the market value of EBay Inc, about $57 billion.
"We will bid what we think it's worth,' Mr Miller told reporters during a lunch meeting at Legg Mason Inc's offices in Baltimore. "I don't know what our answer will be, but I have a sense of what the business is worth."
Mr Miller manages the $14 billion Legg Mason Value Trust fund, which outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 Index for a record 13 years. However, the fund is down two per cent this year, lagging behind the 0.3 per cent advance of the S&P 500.
Google's stock sale will take a different approach than the typical Wall Street IPO. The company plans to auction shares over the internet, opening up the IPO to smaller investors.
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