Q: Is there a bubble for the top 5 companies in the market?
A: “No, just the opposite. I mean, you’re seeing in this kind of a market, those companies don’t need capital. Well, Netflix needs capital. But basically, the big companies in market value don’t need capital. And that will separate them even more from the rest of the pack. I mean, they have an incredible business model. If you look at the top 10 market value of companies go back 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. I mean, go back years. It’s, you know, it’s AT&T, the old AT&T, and General Motors, and Standard Oil, New Jersey, as it was called then.
But those companies needed money. I mean, when Andrew Carnegie went into the steel biz, he built one steel mill, made money on that, saved enough to three or four years later, he built another one… And now the really incredible companies are the ones that account for just the top five with being well over 10% of the market value of the country. They really don’t– they don’t take capital. Their suppliers may in some cases, and all that, but they are really– overwhelmingly, they’re capital light. And that is really different.”
Warren Buffet – April 2020
El otro día leía una crítica a Apple, Microsoft, Amazon y Google por tener capital en mano de casi 500bn y como eso significaba que no innovaban, razonamiento raro pero en fin, mientras estas empresas tienen esa cantidad de efectivo en la mano igualmente siguen accediendo al mercado de capitales para financiar su innovación porque financieramente tiene sentido.
Por ejemplo ayer Alphabet logró 10bn en bonos hasta 40 años pagando 0.45% de tasa para financiar gran parte de sus iniciativas ecológicas y “otros”; Amazon hace un mes consiguió unos 6bn con 0.40% de tasa para expandir sus operaciones logísticas y de infra…
Cuando uno mira esto en abstracto, se da cuenta que el cash para financiar inversiones en muchos casos cuesta haorrores (cortar iniciativas, entregar un % de tu empresa, pagar menos dividendos) pero en estos casos… es simplemente una estrategia financia y por eso el mercado las está separando del resto.
Les recomiendo leer a Chris Mayer en Technopoly de donde saque la cita y datos.