Google figures reported early in error costs them £20bn in shares

Up to 9per cent of Google’s shares are lost after financial stats are blurted out ahead of deadline...

16:09 20 October 2012

Search engine giant Google has lost £20bn in shares because of a public blunder where their latest market results were released untimely. The early release of their latest quarterly figures saw a fall in favourability, with Google’s net income being hit by a reported $2.18bn.

 

Google, the company who dominate the domain of information, had a net revenue of $11.3bn for their third quarter - as reported by The Independent - which was down by $6bn on what Wall Street expected.

 

The hiccup came earlier this week, as the firm were preparing their performance rates and a body connected to the group reportedly hit the send button by mistake. This meant that the information was available ahead of the stock market closing.

 

It as this unexpected announcement that resulted in Google’s shares slumping.

 

Google account the blame for the recent news to RR Donnelley, their financial printing firm, with a spokesman for the popular website saying: “RR Donnelley, the financial printer, informed us that they filed our draft 8K earnings statement without authorisation."

 

The spokesman continued: “We have ceased trading on Nasdaq while we work to finalise the document. Once it’s finalised we will release our earnings, resume trading on Nasdaq and hold our earnings call as normal.”

 

The chief executive of Google, Larry Page, apologised earlier this week for the error. He was quoted by The Independent saying: “I'm sorry for the scramble earlier today.”