Google Inc. hired Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to arrange its initial public offering, a sale that may raise as much as $4 billion, a banker involved in the transaction said.

The sale by Google, the world's most used Internet search engine, would be the biggest IPO since CIT Group Inc.'s $4.87 billion deal in July 2002. It ``will certainly be the deal of the year,'' said Sanford Robertson, who founded San Francisco-based investment bank Robertson, Stephens & Co. before starting private- equity firm Francisco Partners LP.

Read more: Bloomberg.