Google Q3 2012 Earnings Outed Early In Massive Printing Blunder

In what very well may be the worst move Google's printing company PR Donnelley has ever made, they've filed the company's draft 8K earnings statement without authorization – because of this situation, Google's stock fell several points and they were forced to end trading for the day to avoid catastrophe. Releasing an earnings report, even a favorable one, is never something a company wants to do during the middle of a day in which stocks are able to be traded. Google's PR company here doing such a thing means that they're in for a world of hurt, to put it lightly.

Google's earnings report for Q3 ended up showing a third-quarter profit of $2.18 billion, this down from $2.73 billion one year ago. That's $6.53 a share down from $8.33 a share one year ago – profit fell from $9.72 a share down to $9.03 a share exluding all stock-based compensation and other items. Revenue improved, on the other hand, to $11.33 billion. Total costs had a lot to do with this situation as they jumped 71% according to Google.

The folks at Google released a statement on the situation that makes it clear that they never intended for their earnings to be released before the end of the trading day. It should be clear that the $10.65 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting compared to Google's Q3 earnings of $9.03 were not going to be great to hear in any case, but that a release like this was not intended.

"Earlier this morning RR Donnelley, the financial printer, informed us that they had filed our draft 8K earnings statement without authorization. We have ceased trading on NASDAQ while we work to finalize the document. Once it's finalized we will release our earnings, resume trading on NASDAQ and hold our earnings call as normal at 1:30 PM PT." – Google

This earnings report also noted that Motorola's MSI -0.39% had a negative effect on Googles profit, with Google having an adjusted operating loss of $151 million, or 6% of the unit's revenue for the quarter. Earnings for Google's overall business compared to a year ago fell 20% while ad revenue increased 16% – paid ad clicks jumped by one third year-over-year and by 6% compared to Q2.

[via Wall Street Journal]