Another $US40 billion buyback ahead for Microsoft

By Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 23 September 2008 10:34

IT Industry - Listed Tech

"These announcements illustrate our confidence in the long-term growth of the company and our commitment to returning capital to our shareholders," said CFO Chris Liddell.

That said, Microsoft's yield is still only 1.7 percent, so buyers would be looking for significant capital growth on top of that. IBM's shares also show a current yield of 1.7 percent, while HP's is just 0.7 percent. Google and Apple do not pay dividends.

HP has also announced this week an additional $US8 million fund for share repurchases, primarily as a way of managing the dilution caused by employee stock plans. The company repurchased shares worth some $US1.6 billion during the third quarter.

In line with the idea of borrowing instead of using cash reserves, the Microsoft board also authorised borrowings of up to $US6 billion, and has established a $US2 billion commercial paper program,

Money raised in this way may be used for purposes such as funding working capital and share repurchases.

Microsoft's paper has been given top ratings of A-1+ by Standard & Poor's and P-1 by Moody's.

"The company’s strong credit quality coupled with investors' current appetite for high quality paper provides a unique opportunity for the company to establish its first-ever commercial paper program and enhance its capital structure," said Microsoft treasurer George Zinn.