Google CFO Reyes Retires

Google confirmed after the stock market closed today that Chief Financial Officer George Reyes will retire as soon as he helps the company find his replacement.

The 53-year-old Reyes, at Google for the last 5+ years, said he will stay to help search for a new CFO, which Google expects will occur by the end of 2007.

Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt in a statement credited Reyes with steering the search and applications provider through its successful IPO (initial public offering), the nightmarish regulations of Sarbanes-Oxley and, of course, helping to scale the company.

But what the statement doesn’t say is why. Why now of all times? Google’s market cap is legendary at more than $160 billion. Despite the $6.86 dip Google’s stock took after the news, the company is trading at an obscene $506.40.

The company is acquiring virtually whatever it wants and, by the way, is emerging as a threat to Microsoft on the applications front.

If Reyes was a key player on a Major League Baseball team, or boxed professionally, you could only say he went out on top, with a fine legacy. Google’s last quarter? Nearly $4 billion in sales and $925 million in profits.

A Google spokesperson wouldn’t comment beyond that the move was a personal decision by Reyes, and I don’t get the sense there is a Google version of the Peanut Butter Manifesto lurking anywhere in its roomy closet. High-level executive departures are a rarity at Google to be sure.

Reyes is probably going to spend more time with family and land with a startup somewhere in Silicon Valley when he gets bored.