Last year, we saw some unusual jobs opening on Google’s website such as postings for financial experts, bond and currency traders and portfolio analysts. Tech blogs found it strange and started speculating about Google’s new possible venture.
Google’s new venture was a trading floor, which was launched in January 2010 to manage company’s $26.5 billion in cash and other short-term investments. Google’s cash pile is third biggest among all U.S. tech companies, only smaller than that of Microsoft’s and Cisco’s. The company’s aim is to grow its cash pile safely and invest it whenever potentially profitable merger and acquisition opportunities arise. Google’s investment team has only six members in 2007, but it has now grown to more than 30 members. Many of the new team members left worthwhile careers at Wall Street banks including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.
Google had a very conservative approach of money management until 2009. The company’s new goal is to increase the returns on its investment. Although the tech giant has not yet given a hint about its previous rate of return on its money or the new target rates after building the trading floor, but financial analysts estimate the company’s 2010 target rate of return on investment would be around 2.5%, much higher than that of competitors such as Yahoo and Amazon.
