Bill Gates,
chairman of Microsoft and the richest
man in the world, added to growing concern
about a financial "bubble" in U.S. technology stocks Sunday by
saying that his own company's shares were "surprisingly
high."
Michel Euler/AP |
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Gates spoke to the assembly of the World Forum in Switzerland
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Microsoft, which has ridden the wave of enthusiasm to
become the world's most valuable company, was probably
less attractive as a long-term investment than a stable
consumer company such as Coca-Cola, said its founder.
"Statistically our chances of still being one of the top 25
companies in America 25 years from now are not very
high. I certainly hope we will still be there, but that will take
at least three or four miracles."
Gates, speaking to a small group of journalists at the
World Economic Forum in Davos, maintained that investors
who were buying Microsoft shares at 60 to 70 times annual
earnings, the sort of multiple the stock enjoys, were taking a
long-shot gamble.
Microsoft, along with other technology companies, was
inherently much riskier than an ordinary industrial company
or consumer stock, he said, and should command a lower
rating than the average company on Wall Street instead of
trading at well over double the average stock market
multiple.
Despite the high price of technology shares, Gates said
that Microsoft would not be deterred from making small
acquisitions, if these were needed to provide important
synergies or fill gaps in its technological and market
strategies.
