The tech giant Microsoft announced yesterday that its CEO Satya Nadella had been named chairman of the board.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) stock is trading today at around $258.06 (+0.26%) following the announcement that Chief executive officer Satya Nadella has been appointed as its new chairman, in place of John Thompson.
Microsoft Corporation stock has always been deemed a finished product and unlikely to produce anything great in the long run because they are already big. Many investors are skeptical about the long-term outlook of Microsoft stock regardless of its advantages as a huge tech company. Microsoft Corporation has however recorded impressive numbers this year as continues to grow despite having a $2 trillion market cap.
Microsoft Corporation’s total revenue saw a $6.7 billion rise year over year in its Q3 fiscal of 2021, with every sector of the tech giant, contributing to this growth. Microsoft’s commercial cloud revenue, Azure, and Dynamics 365 grew 33% year over year to $17.7 billion. The tech company’s cloud computing business, Azure, saw its revenue rise by 50%.
The company paid out $16.1 billion in dividends to shareholders over the trailing 12 months ending March 31, with a dividend yield of 0.9%. Although Microsoft’s dividend yield may look small, its current quarterly dividend of $0.56 is up from $0.36 just five years ago and is currently only paying out 30% of its free cash flow in dividends, to make room for annual dividend increases.
Microsoft, shuffling its leadership also couldn’t have come at a better time. The tech giant announced yesterday that its CEO, Satya Nadella has been named chairman of the board. Nadella who according to a statement from Microsoft was “unanimously elected” to replace John Thompson, has served as the chief executive officer of the tech company since 2014 and has played an integral role in pushing the company to what it is now a trillion-dollar corporation.
Nadella saw the billion-dollar acquisition of LinkedIn, ZeniMax, and Nuance Communications. Thompson, who took over as chairman from the company’s co-founder Bill Gates in 2014, will serve as a lead independent director, according to Microsoft
The appointment of Nadella as Microsoft Chairman comes after the company was subjected to intense criticisms of an unprofessional workplace and sexual harassment allegations after news broke on an affair between its co-founder Bill Gates and an employee back in 2000. Bill Gates’s representatives acknowledged the relationship which reportedly happened while he was chairman of the board.
Microsoft’s board has revealed that it launched an investigation into the matter two years ago but declined to comment on whether its board has decided to let Bill Gates go.
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