Monday, February 05, 2007

Google actual earnings in Q4 2006 was only 2.8USD with normalised tax rate

I have already wrote about Slowing Growth, MC/FCF=95 against Yahoo!'s 28.9, falling Operational cash flow by 9% in Q4 over Q3, saturation point in traffic with Down Trend, Technical Damage, trimming of CAPEX to save Free Cash Flow which is barely flat, but everybody was exited about Earnings and how they "beat" the street. Another surprise here: 13% "Efficient Tax rate" was very handy this Q they have reported EPS 3.29. If we will read ER we will find out that Income before income tax was 1184733, we will apply stated by Google 26% Tax (which is also rather interesting rate) and so normalise tax rate within the year without One Time Benefit due to deal with IRS (they call it "APA" :"Our effective tax rate will be greater in 2007 under the APA than it would have been without it." Surprise, Never Sacrify Party for Tomorrow's Morning.) In plane English if this One Time benefit would not happen now Earnings will be ONLY 1184733*(1-0.26)=876.702 mln USD against 313459 mln shares with Q4 EPS=2.80! way below Street expectations. And the price for it - higher Tax rate in the future. If this deal was not stricken in December 2006 (!) stock will be already below 400 today. Very good timing and clever game as usual.

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