Google to sell stake in Clearwire for $47m, a tenth of the price it originally paid

Google has filed documents with the Securities Exchange Commission in preparation for the sale of its entire stake in the troubled Clearwire Corporation.

Having spent $500 million to acquire a 6.5 percent share back in 2008, Google is now cutting its losses and looking to sell up for approximately $47 million. The proposed $1.60 price per share dramatically undercuts the current $2.27 level, and Google's move will undoubtedly put even more pressure on the already financially constrained company. The SEC documentation explains Google's exit from Clearwire as an act of rebalancing its portfolio of investments, but a more candid assessment would be that Google expects Clearwire to sink beneath its mountain of debt and is getting out while it can.