- Tuesday, 9 February 2010
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When [Otellini] joined the company in 1974, most people didn't even know what a PC was - From the Wall St Journal 11-11-2004
Microsoft dumps Comcast shares
MICROSOFT HAS sold off its entire stake in cable operator, Comcast, according to an SEC filing. The vole flogged its 7.3 per cent stake in Comcast Class A common stock sometime in 2008.
The Redmond giant had owned 150,935,575 shares in the firm, after making an initial $1 billion investment in Comcast in June 1997. Mighty-Soft had also owned 21.6 million shares of Comcast's Special Class A shares.
Comcast has actually done a fair bit better than its competitors throughout the credit crunch, with its shares falling only 15.7 per cent in the last year, compared to the 39.6 per cent average.
But analysts reason Microsoft may have opted out of the cable operator in order to fund an ill-fated bid for Yahoo or to offset losses in other investments, like mortgage-backed securities.
Comcast shares took a hit yesterday, dropping 82 cents, or 5.4 per cent, to $14.51. µ
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It was a profitable company, and a sound investment... and so the idea of any company run by Steve Balmer hanging onto stock like that is anathema. He's a sort of anti-predicter, really: it's worth having people like Steve around, simply to watch what it's NOT worth doing, for the next twelve, to twenty four, months.
That investment would be worth 2.188bil today, if they bought it for 1bil then that's a nice profit. And until they sell the shares it's not a profit.
In the current market turmoil it's worth considering selling shares and turning them into cash. But is there a bank safe enough to put the cash into ;-)
Barclays share price over the past 2 years has fallen 800%, from over £8 to £0.58 now. If you had bought in 2004 at £4, then sold in 2007 at nearly £8 you would have made similar profit to comcast. Hanging on until now would have meant massive losses.
Until you sell the share it's not profit, it's a risk. They may go up, they may go down. It's a tough call.
Microsoft buying Yahoo, what does Yahoo have and do that Microsoft need? If Microsoft takeover will they mess up Yahoo? Can MS buy Yahoo and turn it around?