While many individual Americans are struggling financially, some of the largest corporations in the United States are sitting on billions in cash. Moody’s pointed out in March that U.S. nonfinancial companies' cash holdings rose to $1.24 trillion.
24/7 Wall St. looked at the 10 companies with the largest cash piles the end of their most recently reported quarters. These companies combined have about $317 billion in cash and short-term investments on hand.
24/7 Wall St.: America's worst companies to work for
All of the companies on this list are large, multinational corporations. Every one had sales of at least $15 billion during the past 12 months, and all but one were Fortune 100 companies in 2012. The five companies with the most cash on their balance sheets are all technology companies, although they have different specialties, such as hardware or software. Also in the top 10 are two well-known oil companies, two drugmakers and a health insurer.
Companies hoard cash for a variety of reasons. Concerns about future economic conditions often lead companies to keep a sizable amount of cash in case demand for their products or services drop and they begin to post quarterly losses. Sometimes when the economic environment improves, firms return cash to shareholders in the form of a dividend or share buyback. In other cases, cash is held for potential acquisitions. But, there are cases, one of which was Apple until recently, where the company does not need the cash. This sometimes causes shareholder objections.
When listing the American companies with the most cash and short-term investments, 24/7 Wall St. also added several other factors about the company. We looked at the quarterly filings with the SEC and from Capital IQ for each company to get revenue and earnings for the past 12 months (LTM). We also looked at a company’s market capitalization, which is calculated by multiplying the share price and the number of shares outstanding on the market, and the dividend yield paid out to shareholders. In addition, we looked at the change in stock price over the past 12 months to analyze each company’s market performance. We looked at other recent news about the companies to get a feel for market conditions and what the companies may do with their cash piles in the near future.
24/7 Wall St.: 10 brands that will disappear in 2013
These are the corporations with the most cash and short-term investments.
1. Microsoft Corp.
- Cash and short-term investments: $62.04 billion
- LTM revenue: $73.72 million
- LTM earnings: $16.98 billion
- Market cap: $258.38 billion
- Yield: 2.60 percent
As companies such as Apple and Google have been at the forefront of the headlines, some say that Microsoft’s growth is in the past. But given that the company has more cash on hand than any other company based in the United States, a large portion of its huge market cap is due to the strength of its balance sheet nearly as well as to its growth rate. And although it is not considered the sexy company it once was, Microsoft is not doing poorly by any means. In July, the company reported record full-year revenue of $73.72 billion. In the past year, the stock price has risen 19.13 percent. Sales of the new Windows 8 and Surface tablet, which will begin next month, will be a telling period for the iconic software company.
2. Cisco Systems Inc.
- Cash and short-term investments: $48.72 billion
- LTM revenue: $46.06 billion
- LTM earnings: $8.04 billion
- Market cap: $102.21 billion
- Yield: 2.90 percent
The nearly $50 billion in cash Cisco is sitting on is vital for the Bay Area technology company. Cisco has been facing a general slowdown in demand for information technology equipment due to economic woes both in the U.S. and in Europe. Due to this slowdown, Cisco in July announced job cuts of about 1,300 employees, on top of the 6,500 job cuts announced in 2011. Nevertheless, Cisco’s fourth-quarter and full-year earnings managed to beat Wall St. expectations. Shareholders have been getting their fair share of returns too -- the stock price is up 24.35 percent in the past 12 months. Furthermore, the company announced last month it is hiking its quarterly dividend by 75 percent.
3. Google Inc.
- Cash and short-term investments: $41.72 billion
- LTM revenue: $43.16 billion
- LTM earnings: $11.11 billion
- Market cap: $224.05 billion
- Yield: 0 percent
Google has been able to boost revenue by getting more people to click its advertisements. Products such as Android and Maps, despite broad adoption, have not added to the company’s sales in any significant ways. But the success of the firm’s ad business has been so great it has allowed the company to stash away a lot of cash. The company’s revenue of $12.21 billion in the most recent quarter was up 35 percent from a year earlier. In a span of about 14 years, Google has gone from a scrappy search engine startup to one of the most valuable companies in the world, valued at $224.05 billion. In the past year, shares of Google climbed 30.42 percent. Google faces more questions about its diversification, some of which is based on use of its cash. Google paid $12.5 billion to buyout Motorola Mobility. But that puts the search company into a brutally competitive market that includes leaders Samsung and Apple.
24/7 Wall St.: States losing the most jobs to China
4. Oracle Corp.
- Cash and short-term investments: $30.68 billion
- LTM revenue: $37.12 billion
- LTM earnings: $9.98 billion
- Market cap: $154.53 billion
- Yield: 0.70 percent
Oracle, while not experiencing a rapid growth nearly as rapid Apple’s, has seen moderate success as of late, at least compared to the past several years. It remains the dominant enterprise software company in the world. While Oracle’s fourth-quarter revenue grew only by about 1 percent to $10.9 billion compared to last year, net income rose by a more respectable 8 percent to $3.45 billion. Shares of Oracle are up 19.18 percent in the past 12 months. One concern for Oracle is that its hardware systems sales were down 9 percent in 2012 due to weak demand, although software revenue, which makes up a far larger portion of total revenue, was up 9 percent on the year. And software is where Oracle is putting its money. The company announced in July it was buying software-defined networking vendor Xsigo Systems for an undisclosed sum. Oracle is famous for the torrid pace of its M&A activity.
5. Apple Inc.
- Cash and short-term investments: $27.65 billion
- LTM revenue: $148.81 billion
- LTM earnings: $40.13 billion
- Market cap: $623.60 billion
- Yield: 1.60 percent
Earlier in 2012, Apple had nearly $100 billion in cash, short-term investments and marketable securities (a category not used for this list), well more than any other U.S. company. But in March, the company announced it was returning some of that cash to shareholders by paying out a quarterly dividend of $2.65 a share. Incredibly strong sales of the iPhone and iPad have boosted Apple’s share price 77.75 percent in the past year. Now, with a market capitalization of approximately $623.60 billion, Apple is by far the most valuable company in the world. With more excitement from the new iPhone 5, it does not look like Apple’s sales increases will slow down.
Click here to read the rest of 24/7 Wall St.'s American companies with the most cash