Party time as Google floats at last

THE parties have already started at Google's Mountain View, California, HQ with estate agents and car dealerships preparing to help the company's lucky employees spend their massive windfall riches from the long-awaited IPO.

The company was planning a picnic outing today to celebrate. With the share price staggering up to $100.34 (£54.50) - 18% above the final IPO price of $85 - on its Nasdaq debut, about 1000 of Google's almost 2300 employees are now millionaires on paper, according to an analysis by Salary.com, which tracks employee compensation.

'There are going to be some pretty good parties in the area tonight - with probably not a lot of work getting done at Google tomorrow,' said Bill Coleman, the company's senior vice president of compensation. Co-founders Sergey Brin >and Larry Page top the league, having become billionaires overnight.

Page collected $41.1m and Brin got $40.9m from the sale of shares, but that is nothing compared with the $3bn or so each still holds in stock.

Their fortune has catapulted them into the US big time, putting them at 50th on Forbes' US richest list.

But most of the staff, ranging from secretaries to executives, will have to wait for 180 days before being allowed to sell their stock.

One worker is said to have ordered a $90,000 car, another has his eye on a winery and others are looking to buy items of fine art at auctioneer Christie's.