Google’s legendary war chest may finally be put to use. Although there’s almost no way the company will spend all its cash, a vice president of corporate development did indicate in a recent interview that it’s looking to make one or more gigantic acquisitions.
David Lawee hinted at this possibility by telling Douglas MacMillan and Aaron Ricadela, "The world changes really quickly, and companies that were small two years ago are huge today. It wouldn’t surprise me to see more large opportunities for us."
Then Lawee got a lot more specific in response to a question about whether Google will buy more businesses the size of YouTube (which sold for $1.65 billion) or DoubleClick (which went for $3.2 billion). His answer was simply "yes."
The rumor mill is sure to start naming potential acquisition targets before long. Twitter’s one possibility, as is anything that would give Google TV a boost. Or maybe even something that would help Google regain market share in China.
Feel free to take more guesses in the comments section.
In any event, Google shouldn’t have much trouble when it comes to paying for a company. As of September 30th, it had $33.4 billion in "cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities," and as we noted following its earnings report, that means Google’s got more than the (separate) GDPs of about 100 different countries sitting in the bank.