Authors: Jeanette Torres
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Google announced a controversial stock split on Thursday that will allow Sergey Brin and Larry Page lifetime control of the company they invented 16 years ago.
The 2 for 1 stock split creates a new class of non-voting shares. Investors would receive one share of the non-voting stock for each share they now own. The split would also cut the price of each share in half.
The creation of a such a large block of non-voting shares is believed to be a first for a big U.S. publicly traded company.
The move came as Google announced a 61 percent jump in first quarter profits.
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