Submitted by: kirkland on Monday April 26th, 2004 at 04:26 PM EST

Within days, Internet search firm Google Inc. is expected to announce it will carry out an initial public share offering, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The announcement is related to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule that says a private company must make public more information about its business once its passes a certain size in terms of assets and number of shareholders, the Journal said.

Google, which has enough assets and shareholders to trigger the rule, is expected to make those disclosures as early as next week, the Journal said.

Google Inc. has been widely expected to float its stock this year. It competes with media services company Yahoo Inc. and software giant Microsoft Corp. in the Web search business that it now leads.

Bankers have said a Google offering could value the company at as much as $25 billion, the Journal said.

A Google representative could not be immediately reached by Reuters for comment.

Source: MSNBC