Google To Alphabet To XXVI

Although it feels like Google’s corporate reorganisation and the formation of the Alphabet holding company that became the parent company of Google, (even though Google was first) happened quite recently, it’s actually been around 2 years now, much to my surprise.

Now, Alphabet itself is forming a new holding company which, according to Google (it will always be Google, no matter what they decide to call the various bits), is designed to finalise its evolution into a corporation with different businesses in a wide array of different sectors, from robotics to health care to autonomous transport, to name just a few.

XXVI Holdings

According to the announcement made at the beginning of this month, the new company, XXVI Holdings, (26 for anybody unfamiliar with Roman numerals), has been created in order to legally separate the equity of each Alphabet company (which despite being held by Alphabet were still owned by Google) and thus keep each of the previously subsidiary companies (like Waymo, the self-driving care business, and Verily, a medical device firm, amongst others) as independently held companies.

The company is also being changed from a corporation, to an LLC, or “Limited Liability Company” in order, (they say) to limit the exposure of related companies to any obligations (debt) incurred by one of the others. It can also help limit companies obligations to disclose financial performance data.

“As a result of the corporate reorganization, Alphabet and Google will be able to operate in a more efficient, economical, and transparent manner, allowing the companies to concentrate on their revenue generating activities,” the company stated during the procedure of making these changes official.

Legal Formality

According to Google, these changes are simply a legal formality. They won’t affect shareholder control, operations, management or personnel. Of course, in my secret heart of hearts, I can’t help suspect that this is just a tactic to obscure the eventual formation of SkyNet, but hey, that’s probably  just me…