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发帖数: 8469 | 1 Shares of Microsoft (MSFT) are a standout gainer today, rising $1.29, or 4.3
%, at to $31.34, following a presentation this morning by chief financial
officer Peter Klein at the Goldman Sachs technology conference going on this
week in San Francisco.
The transcript of the talk is here, but The Seattle Times’s Janet Tu also
offers a rundown of the highlights of some of the various product aspects
that Klein talked about, such as Skype and Windows 8.
Goldman’s software analyst Heather Bellini hosted the chat. She asked Klein
at the outset about Microsoft’s view on returning cash to shareholders and
about the company’s spending on investment:
Bellini: Just generally speaking, can you walk us through Microsoft’s
view on capital allocation, and how you think about changes to the dividend?
Klein: In terms of distributing cash back to shareholders, it’s
definitely been the case over the course over the last year or two, we’ve
pivoted more towards dividends than buybacks than we historically have, in
large part due to feedback we’ve gotten from the investment community. And
we think that’s been pretty well received cumulatively over the last two
years, we’ve increased our dividend over 50%. And so, we try and be
responsive to what we’re hearing from investors, and delivering cash back
to shareholders.
Bellini: And are there metrics that you look at about what causes you to
raise a dividend? I mean, what are the benchmarks that you use to kind of
decide when to progress it forward?
Klein: Obviously, you look at your operating income growth and your
payout, and that’s sort of one key thing that you look at. And, in the past
, we’ve tended to look at that and to operate in step with that. You look
at your cash, where it is, whether it’s overseas, whether it’s in the U.S.
But, just a whole number of factors.
Bellini: And do legislation changes have any impact on the board’s
thought process there?
Klein: Potentially, clearly if you have more cash available in the US
that changes the dynamic somewhat.
Bellini: Or taxation policies related to dividend.
Klein: Correct.
Bellini: Okay. The other thing, since the downturn as you mentioned
three or four years ago, when cash was something everyone wanted to hold
onto. But, looking at what you’ve done with operating expenses. People used
to complain about Microsoft investing in everything and not having a lot of
cost discipline, and I think you guys probably get an A-plus from
shareholders since that time period, in terms of how tightly you’ve been
managing the growth in OPEX. What would be the things that would cause kind
of recent history to change, where you might have to start investing more
aggressively again?
Klein: It’s hard to speculate about that, because the fact of the
matter is we actually feel well positioned and well invested. If you think
about it, we have a pretty broad portfolio of assets that we think tie
together very well. We see enormous growth opportunities, across all of them
over the next three-to-five years. And so really it’s more a matter of
staying true to that, making sure we’re allocating resources to the right
things at the right time. Making sure we’re being as efficient, every day
in the things that we do. For right now, we’re invested against a pretty
full set of things, with lots of opportunity still to come. |
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