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By Bloomberg

Google Inc. investors will hear from Ruth Porat, the new chief financial officer, for the first time Thursday during the company’s earnings call. They’re hoping to get more than a basic business update.

Porat, who held the same position at Morgan Stanley before she replaced Patrick Pichette in May, will draw listeners trying to decipher how she’ll handle the post -- and whether she’ll signal any change in the company’s direction.

“There will be more scrutiny -- people will be more interested,” said Ryan Jacob, who manages Google shares as part of his Jacob Internet Fund. “Is anything going to change? If so, what?”

Porat arrived amid concerns that the search giant is spending too much, growing more slowly and hampered by regulatory scrutiny. Wall Street is banking on her to calm their concerns.

“It was a great hire,” Nabil Elsheshai, a senior equity research analyst at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, which holds shares in Google. “It’s somebody with a very strong financial background -- managing a company that has a complex capital allocation environment. She is obviously well-known by Wall Street.”

Winnie King, a spokeswoman for Google, declined to comment.

Here are the five things Wall Street is looking for:

Discipline

Google has poured money back into the company from core services to longterm bets such as driverless cars and robotics.

Investors want Porat to show she can keep pointed toward investments that will deliver returns -- and help boost margins.

“Most people aren’t expecting an official number, but they just want to see her talk about it -- that she’s focused on it,” said Robert Peck, an analyst with Suntrust Robinson Humphrey Inc. “It’s not that investors don’t necessarily want spending -- it’s investors want to know it’s being prudently done.”

Pichette had been talking up efforts to be careful with spending, pointing out the company pulled back on underperforming projects such as Google Glass. While operating expenses climbed 21 percent to $6.46 billion in the first quarter, it was less than the increases of more than 30 percent in the previous two periods.

The rate of hiring has slowed as well the past two quarters, even as the total workforce remains at more than 55,000 employees.

Unit Detail

Investors want more transparency around how much each business delivers to the company.

Porat could give more sales numbers around business units such as the video-sharing service YouTube, display advertising, mobile and Google Play, the digital store for buying applications and entertainment content, analysts said. She also could give specifics on the core business: search.

Analysts cited Amazon.com Inc.’s decision earlier this year to break out for the first time how much it makes in its cloud- computing business.

“Here is an easy opportunity for a new CFO to establish a fresh, constructive approach toward the market,” RBC Capital Markets analysts wrote in a note to clients earlier this month.

Cash Pile Plans

Google was sitting on more than $65 billion in cash at the end of the first quarter -- and investors want some of it returned to them.

Wall Street has pressed the company about this for years and nothing has happened, even as rivals such as Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have rolled out share buybacks and dividend.

Investors are more wishful than expectant that Porat will address this question on her first call, Peck said.

“She hasn’t been there that long,” he said.

Sales Growth Rebound

Even with a new CFO, investors will still be looking closely at Google’s financial performance, especially revenue, after the company missed analysts’ estimates in the first quarter.

Analysts expect the company to post second-quarter sales, minus revenue passed onto partners, of $14.27 billion in the second quarter, an increase of 13 percent from a year earlier.

A key driver is the price of ads, which continue to be under pressure with the proliferation of mobile devices and growth in overseas markets. The price of ads likely declined about 7 percent from the year-ago period while the total clicks on promotions climbed 14 percent, according to RBC. That would be about the same as first-quarter performance.

European Scrutiny

The European Union has escalated its four -year-old probe of the company, accusing it of abusing its dominance in the search-engine market and starting a new investigation into Google’s Android mobile-phone software.

Porat could help investors with any fresh thoughts on how Google might navigate the inquiries, said Victor Anthony, an analyst with Axiom Capital Management. Last month, the company gained an extra six weeks to prepare its response to the EU’s antitrust complaint.