Google IPO: local impact seen minimal

Dotcom stories of 2000 to cast shadow on investments.

Can the $2 billion initial public offering (IPO) by Google herald a global turnaround for technology stocks or at least for Internet stocks?

After all even renowned stock market investor Warren Buffet - who is known to be averse to technology stocks because by his own admission he has no knowledge of IT - has been all praise for the company.

Surprisingly, in India the Google IPO has not evoked any positive enthusiasm in the sense of lending to a recovery in technology stocks.

The general feeling is that, in remembrance of the great boom and the bust of dotcoms in 2000, investors are likely to be more cautious in investing.

Narayan S A, managing director of Kotak Securities, said, "Investors will subscribe to companies with a good business model and a tried and proven track record."

Google's business model has been proved to be successful and the company's profit track record is also good.

Shahi Krishnan, chief executive officer, Cholamandalam Mutual Fund, said, "The technology and IT companies are already seeing a revival of sorts worldwide and this may just add impetus to the upturn."

Paras Adenwala, equity fund manager with Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, said, "Google's business is rather different from that of a conventional information technology company and probably the impact could be there on Internet stocks."

He said, "People are going to be more cautious in investing after what happened in 2000, though Google has a good track record behind it."

He said if the issue proved to be successful then the apprehensions over Internet stocks could decrease to some extent.

Google is seen to be a unique business model and is likely to have little impact on other IT firms globally and certainly not on Indian technology stocks.

Dharmesh Mehta, head of broking, Enam Securities, said, "There is going to be a sectoral shift anyway to tech stocks because investors are underweight on them. But this will be due to the performance of the leading companies in the sector in the country rather than on the Google IPO."

Market watchers also expressed uncertainty about the pricing of the issue since it is to be based on an auctioning system which is fairly new in the US.

Tejas Doshi, head of research at Sushil Finance, said, "Look at what is happening in the technology sector. Chip sales are up by 32 per cent in March. I think that is what will drive the technology sector."

He, however, said that there could be some impact on stocks such as that of Amazon, Yahoo and so on.