Google’s pending $700 million cash deal to buy ITA Software may have reverberated throughout the travel industry, but Google apparently doesn’t consider it a “material definitive agreement” and didn’t file a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission about it.
In layman’s terms, companies must file an 8-K when they enter into an agreement that would have a material impact on the company’s well-being, but there are no definitive formulas that trigger a filing.
Form 8-K’s are valuable to investors — and journalists — because they sometimes provide additional detail about an agreement that hasn’t been publicly disclosed.
Google’s $700 million agreement to acquire ITA is the largest deal Google has announced so far in 2010, but with $23.7 billion in 2009 revenue, it is not going to make or break the company and didn’t, in Google’s view, require detailing in an 8-K.
Please read the full story at http://www.tnooz.com/2010/07/08/news/google-ita-software-deal-part-of-recent-google-shopping-behavior/