The stock price for Google’s newly formed parent company Alphabet shot up in after-hours trading Thursday as the company reported third-quarter earnings.
The company reported better-than expected earnings for Q3, with earnings of $7.35 per share on $18.68 billion of revenue. Analysts had predicted $7.21 per share on $18.53 billion.
In its report, Alphabet noted that its board of directors had authorized a buy-back of more than $5 billion in the company’s Class C stock.
The stock buyback represents the first time that Google has given cash back to shareholders.
Class C stock for the company rose more than 11 percent in after-hours trading Thursday after the release of earnings. The company’s Class A stock grew 9 percent.
In August, Google announced that the company was restructuring under a new parent organization, Alphabet. “Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable. So we are creating a new company called Alphabet. I am really excited to be running Alphabet as CEO with help from my capable partner, Sergey, as President,” Google co-founder Larry Page wrote on Google’s site at the time, referring to fellow co-founder Sergey Brin.