Image: Seth Wenig/Associated Press
Google's stock split officially went into effect on Thursday, almost exactly two years after the company first proposed the move to shareholders.
As part of the stock split, Google will introduce a new category of Class C stock, which will trade under the GOOG ticker, but carries no voting power. Shareholders will receive one share of Class C stock for each share of Class A stock they own. The original Class A shares will trade under a new stock ticker, GOOGL.
There is also a third class of stock â€" Class B â€" which carries 10 votes per share and is largely held by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. This setup ensures that the three top executives will maintain voting control over the company even as they sell off their shares over time.
The stock split was initially delayed as shareholders filed a lawsuit arguing that the move would unfairly benefit the founders. Google settled that lawsuit in mid-2013 by agreeing to pay up to $7.5 billion if there ends up being a big enough difference in the trading price of the Class A and Class C stock in the first year.
Google's stock topped $1,000 a share for the first time late last year, making it one of only a handful of companies to hit a four-digit trading price, and rose above $1,200 earlier this year. As a result of the stock split, the stock price has come back down from those heights.
Both the Class A and Class C stock were hovering around $570 a share in early trading.
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