>You experts, please excuse this dumbass question. If I remember right,
>I read somewhere that the stock in Amazon Books is worth $20-billion and
>the stock value of Barnes and Noble is about $2-billion, and that
>includes all those buildings and parking lots and inventory and expresso
>machines, not to mention the B&N web site, not to mention the wholesaler
>Ingram.
>
>First, have I got that right or is that something I remember from a
>dream or something? Second, if Amazon's stock is worth $20-billion, how
>much ready cash does Amazon Books have as a result of this? Is it
>possible they have got enough cash to buy Barnes and Noble outright? Or
>is all that enormous stock valuation like sea foam, where it exists only
>between and amongst the traders in shares?
Amazon is capitalized at around $22 billion, B&N at $2.4b.
A company like Amazon.com, which loses pots on every sale, can be safely assumed to have little cash on hand, except for the few minutes after they get a fresh infusion from an optimistic investor. Their currency is stock, not cash - that's how they do acquisitions. I doubt they could do an all-stock acquisition of B&N, but who knows?
>Amazon isn't the only one, this is actually a general question; why,
>say, doesn't, Yahoo buy Gateway 2000?
Why should they? Hardware is like so second wave. Gateway - market cap $11 billion - has real earnings, and a P/E of 33, Yahoo of 1564.77 (according to Yahoo's own quote page). Mixing Gateway shares with Yahoo's would only dilute their value!
Doug