NEW YORK, Aug 17 (AFP) - Google Inc prepared to wrap up an extraordinary share auction Tuesday, meaning a final price in the multi-billion-dollar listing will be announced within days.
The Mountain View, California-based company has asked regulators to issue an approval to sell shares at 4:00 pm (20:00 GMT), and it may close the bidding as soon as one hour afterwards.
Google says it expects the auction will price its stock at between 108 and 135 dollars a share, valuing the entire firm at up to 36 billion dollars at the top of the range.
Many analysts say such a price is unlikely, however, in a market of miserably weak technology stocks.
"It appears as though the 108-135 (dollars a share range) might be a bit aggressive in terms of a target for the pricing of this deal," said Art Hogan, market strategist at Jefferies and Co.
"If Google doesn't get the irrational exuberance bidders and they decide to lower the price and it trades somewhere between 75 and 100 dollars, the relative valuations of its peer group would probably have to be reassessed as well," Hogan said.
If Google announces the initial public offering (IPO) price Tuesday, trading on the Nasdaq under the stock symbol GOOG could start as early as Wednesday. Insiders reportedly say it could take a day or so longer.
Google shares may start trading at a "clearing price" arrived through a complicated and unorthorodox auction.
The company has said it might cut the price to enable more investors to get the stock and to help offset the risk of a first-day plunge on the stock market.
Investors who pre-registered for the auction have been placing bids since Friday.
The IPO, founded by computer whizz kids Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both 30, has been rocky.
It hit headlines last week when the co-founders laid bare corporate details in an interview with Playboy magazine.
The group said Friday it believed the splash, entitled "Playboy Interview: Google Guys," abided by securities regulations, which restrict information released ahead of an initial public offering (IPO).
"If our involvement in a September 2004 magazine article about Google were held to be in violation of the Securities Act of 1933, we could be required to repurchase securities sold in this offering," Google said.
A source close to the SEC said the market regulator would not stop the offering but could not, however, rule out future action against Google.
In the September issue of Playboy, Page and Brin discuss the company's post-IPO culture and Google's fledgling e-mail service.