Many frustrated investors of the Microsoft Corporation surprisingly did not talk much about the stagnant share prices in the company’s Annual General Meeting held on September 14th this year. To the surprise of many, the question and answer session was more focused upon Microsoft’s upcoming operating system Windows 8. The Wall Street analysts and fund managers were also a part of the meeting and were surprised for no queries were raised regarding the dividend increasing demands of the shareholders. News was aired earlier that the shareholders were fighting for a doubling of the dividend to what was currently being paid or at least a special payout similar to the one done back in 2004.
According to an unrevealed source, who happens to be one of the fund managers, nobody asked the question related to a rise in the dividend payment and they wanted to see more of a bank dividend. Sid Parakh, McAdams Wright Ragen analyst, shared his opinion after the meeting saying that the company is obviously restricted in what it can do and it was a reaffirmation of what they have been saying, they have been pretty clear. He thinks that the dividend raise issue between the stakeholders was merely hype create by media alone. Peter Klein, the Chief Financial Officer, adds to this by saying that returning cash to shareholders was one of the company’s biggest goals.
The leading technologist pays 2.5% dividend at the moment and will be giving a quarter end raise apparently. Other topics that needed attention in this meet up were the comments given by David Einhorn and the unnamed letter received by stakeholders regarding debt fund. The current CEO, Ballmer, said while addressing the shareholders that he does not love where they stand, they have just got to kick this thing to the next level. He was not referring to disposing off Bing or not so famous smartphones but to Microsoft’s joint venture with Nokia that will be revealing Windows phone pretty soon. The company products are gaining their importance back as the trial version of Windows 8 got downloaded by at least 500,000 users, which shows progress.
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