Sure, probably true, but all that is pointing to if it makes sense from the buyers perspective. Just pointing out that it matters which side of the buyout you're on. From WF's perspective, if they've truly reached the pinnacle of their existence and someone offered them a 30% premium on that, it doesn't matter who the buyer is, it's a spectacular deal for them!
I remember when they were half owner of a healthfood store in the San Fernando Valley... Vegan purists hated the guy that split off and went corporate and all...
Railroads transformed the U.S. of A, then roads and trucks, then just-in-time-delivery computerized systems of store management [WalMart mastered that very early on], then the internet transformed shopping and we will move to local 3d printing of everything and eventually we will upload ourselves to a computer virtual reality and not need goods at all. Good times!!
Well Amazon probably wants to expand to e-grocery business considering that's the only thing that it doesn't sell right now. But I agree paying $13.6 BILLION ALL CASH for an unsustainable organic grocery business is a too much. I mean the biggest criticism that the organic industry lays onto the conventional food industry is its unsustainability in terms of its land use, abuse of pesticide, genetic engineering, massive marketing and distribution but Whole Food is selling organic food exactly the same way as conventional grocery, in massive grocery chains across the country. So if the business model of conventional food industry is unsustainable, how is organic food when sold in the same business model of conventional food industry all of sudden sustainable?
They also had zero expertise in cloud storage and computing. And they are the world's best and the sector contributes a huge percentage to the bottom line. It takes visionary and smart people with a long term perspective at the top and in middle management then anything is possible. Not those creepy wall street type executives who can look as far as 3 months ahead and restructure only when forced by regulators or after just another transgression is discovered.
The part that corporations try to maximize efficiencies and minimize cost is not the scary part. The scary part is that we have governments in power who don't understand that leaving humans and corporations to their own devices does not motivate them at all to self regulate. The only entity that can regulate is a government that can ensure and can strive for making work available and that such work is fairly rewarded. No company cares about that nor has that as part of their corporate philosophy. A governing political party that believes that rich individuals and corporations have the best of society at their heart is hopelessly lost and does not understand the slightest about the purpose of stewardship towards its own people.
AWS probably a big chunk of the share price maybe 30-40% but earnings are modest - less a billion per quater. margins go down, prices also down and no dividend, no share buyback. so basically investors don't see any return except as a share price and it's a bubble anyway
What are you talking about. Amazon is one of the biggest success stories for shareholders in history. If you care about dividends go and buy a railroad or electricity utility.