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In making a brief statement of its intentions, the search giant is giving nothing away, beyond stating that the money is earmarked for 'general corporate purposes...and possible acquisitions'. However the size of the offering immediately sparked speculation about what it plans to do with the money.

According to the Wall Street Journal, possibilities include major acquisitions in Asia and 'secret plans' for VoIP Internet telephony. Other suggestions include expanding its nascent video search and developing an

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electronic payment system. VoIP rumours were given weight by the news that earlier this week the company acquired Android, a portable wireless handset maker founded by a former Apple engineer, Andy Rubin. For Asia, read China, where Yahoo recently took a 40 per cent stake in an e-commerce operation.

To add to the air of mystery, the number of shares to be sold, 14,159,265, corresponds with the first eight numbers after the decimal point in the value of pi.

Fortune argues that Google 'is essentially admitting that it needs more money to develop new products to fight off competition' from Yahoo and Microsoft.

The extra cash will raise its reserves to about $7bn, more than Yahoo!'s $3.4bn, but far short of Microsoft's $37.7bn, a not-insubstantial part of which is being ploughed into MSN search.

The downside for existing stock owners is that their holding will be diluted, adding to concerns that the company may be overvalued by as much as 150 per cent. But it is no dot-com disaster; the company is profitable and expects to continue to grow its revenues from online advertising.