Google’s former head and current Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt looks to be parting ways with Google, at least a little bit. New details this afternoon have confirmed that the once big wig will be selling around 42% of his stake in Google Inc. The plan was announced today by Google and apparently will take place over the next year.

Eric Schmidt has played a huge role on the growth and success of Google, and while we aren’t quite sure what the reasoning is behind this — it will probably turn out just fine for all parties involved. According to Google the reasoning and plan behind this move is simple. And that is to give Schmidt “individual asset diversification and liquidity.”

Schmidt will be selling around 3.2 million Class A common Google Inc stock according to Reuters, which equals out to just over 42% of his total stake in the company and search giant. The once CEO of Google currently owns over 7.6m Class A and B stock, and Google has agreed to let him drop his shares over the course of the next 12 months.

Schmidt will be selling these assets and shares over the next year and Google states it will be spread out in order to reduce the market impact. The stock being sold represents around 8% voting power in Google, and I sure wish I could buy it all. Google shares were at a closing high of $785.37 today with the news, and it will be interesting to see how that gets impacted. We aren’t sure how this will affect Google moving forward, but it’s interesting nonetheless.