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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

It's genuinely interesting to see Google fund this with equity versus debt.

It's also interesting watching Alphabet buy back $100 billion of stock over the last two years, when the price was half what it is today, only to turn around and sell shares now at the higher price.

I know GAAP accounting won't recognize any capital gain on these treasury operations, but from an economic standpoint this financial judo creates a lot of value for existing shareholders.

"Buy low, sell high" isn't exactly financial manipulation.

I think the point OP was trying to make is when a person "buys low sells high" they pay taxes on the gains.

this is the finance team doing a fantastic job. keep in mind they're raising this cash right before 3 major ipos in their sector which people will need to raise money for and will fight against htem in the narrative.

If i was a google cfo and was trading at a premium to my peers before that, i'd want to raise the cash now. Look at MSFT, they're trading at 25 forward p/e and were buying back shares at 40. If they have to issue equity over the next few years the spread between teh performance of the 2 cfos could be 40-50b on that alone.

My first thought was my finance professor telling us that companies always raise with equity when they think their equity is overvalued.

You’d think Berkshire would be at least passingly aware of that principle, though.

It’s not easy to buy such a large tranche of shares at a fixed and fair price in a single transaction!

Both parties get something they want this transaction. Alphabet gets the Berkshire halo effect and a guaranteed buyer of $10 billion worth of equities, Berkshire gets a large tranche of equity at a price they believe is fair.

I think they view Alphabet as their next Apple, and a relatively safe place to ride out whatever happens with AI: Alphabet is fairly well positioned for the upturn or the downturn, especially now with this expanded warchest of cash.

They are buying 10B$ worth of shares for 10% discount from current valuation, and if their goal is to hold for 10-20 years, then it could be a good hedged buy in favour of AI.

Even if AI crashes 90% SpaceX, OpenAI & Anthropic are worth say 200B each post IPO. In 10-20 years with similar effects to Internet they might be the next Meta. Apple, Microsoft of the world.

But Google will likely still be the leader if it can make good on it's advantages.

Just as a google shareholder, this company bought back shares hand over fist at a low p/e for a few years, issues 100 year debt at low rates, and is selling equity when its at a premium to its peers right before 2-3 major ipos of competitors put selling pressure on the stock for a while.

I don't know who's going to win the llm battle, but googles finance team has been doing their job fantastically.

Really? lol.

Tech firms should always have a buffer and never get too close to the optimal debt ratio.

I think they have learned a lot re. what happens if you are asleep at the wheel now.

> Really?

Yes. Their competition is deploying debt and Google has low leverage. They also have $100+ billion cash on their balance sheet.

> Tech firms should always have a buffer and never get too close to the optimal debt ratio

...why is this especially applicable to tech firms? (Or a tech firm like Google?)

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