How did those guys hear about the $10 billion special dividend from microsoft??

[Juniper]

Never saw it coming, until I read it on money.cnn.com

 

[Mill]

I like it! That will be 1504 dollars in my pocket. I totally think they should do it! The increase in share price is nice too! Go MSFT! I have owned their stock since 93-94 and it has been very good to me. This will be great if they do this.

 

[glugglug]

I would bet on it not happening. Articles about fictional $10 billion dividends boost site traffic/sales.

 

[Mill]

Originally posted by: glugglug
I would bet on it not happening. Articles about fictional $10 billion dividends boost site traffic/sales.

FT reported it... they are one of the most respected Financial News services out there. They are nobody's pawn. It might not, happen, but FT is not just doing this for any site traffic or sales boost.

 

[BigPoppa]

Gates stands to make $1.8 billion from it.

 

[m2kewl]

woohoo!! i'm gonna get dividends on my 100 shares from those cheap bastages!!

 

[Maverick]

there is a possibility that the institutional shareholders will lobby to get them to spend the cash by announcing an acquisition...this would effectively raise the stock price more instead of resulting in cash for a dividend.

 

[FoBoT]

this is possible for 2 reasons (that i know of)

MS has something like $40 billion (or more) in cash. they have been holding it due to the severe tax implications to the major stockholders, which brings us to reason #2, the recent changes in the capital gains tax rates will make this a good move

 

[Hector13]

Originally posted by: BigPoppa
Gates stands to make $1.8 billion from it.

which probably means less than nothing to him.

Plus, being that he owns so much stock in MS, that money "belongs" to him already.

 

[Hector13]

Originally posted by: Shiva112
there is a possibility that the institutional shareholders will lobby to get them to spend the cash by announcing an acquisition...this would effectively raise the stock price more instead of resulting in cash for a dividend.

why? Unless they can find some great "synergy" buys (yeh right), most shareholders would be better of with the dividend. That way they (the shareholders) get to decide how to use that money for acquisitions (ie, buying shares in a different company) as opposed to MS making that decision.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Shiva112
there is a possibility that the institutional shareholders will lobby to get them to spend the cash by announcing an acquisition...this would effectively raise the stock price more instead of resulting in cash for a dividend.

Not much left to buy -- even this justice department probably won't let them buy SCO to use as a club against linux.

Maybe another game studio or company? Viviendi's death spiral might get them to sell what's left of Interplay cheap. The company itself is a shambles but there are some good franchises that could be revived with new developers. But that'sprobably hundreds of millions not billions.