Former Google boss Eric Schmidt, who stepped down from the company yesterday said that he will flog more than $326m worth of shares.

The announcement comes after the firm announced that Google co-founder Larry Page would replace Schmidt as chief executive in April. Schmidt will become executive chairman, but his share sale is the first in more than three years.

The stock-trading plan, filed with the American financial regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission, states that Schmidt intends to sell as much as 534,000 Class A shares during the course of the year. Google's shares were worth $611.75 yesterday, making the sale worth $326.67m at today's prices.  To be fair the sale is a fraction of Schmidt's Google fortune.He has 9.2m Google shares, worth $5.8 billion but it seems to suggest he needs some readies quite fast.

Schmidt stunned Wall Street by stepping down from the company saying that it no longer needed "adult supervision". On a conference call with analysts Schmidt said: "I believe Larry is ready. His ideas are very interesting and clever and it's time for him to have a shot at running this.