Google's Schmidt to sell roughly 42% of stake

Google Inc Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is selling roughly 42 percent of his stake in the Internet search company over the coming year, Google announced on Friday.

Schmidt will sell 3.2 million shares of Class A common stock through a stock trading plan, Google said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The plan, which Google said would give Schmidt "individual asset diversification and liquidity," allows Schmidt to spread trades out over a period of one year to reduce the market impact. Google must extend payments across Europe for use of content in Google News Schmidt, who served as Google's Chief Executive until 2011, currently owns roughly 7.6 million shares of Class A and Class B common stock. The shares represent 2.3 percent of Google's outstanding stock and roughly 8.2 percent of the voting power of Google's stock. Shares of Google, which finished Friday's session at a new closing high of USD 785.37, were down USD 2.21 in after hours trading.