Taking in and giving back

Okay, I couldn't resist.  The last post 'celebrated' the corporate donors in our valley.  But there's a context worth considering here....

Vis-a-vis the list of Silcon Valley 'donors' to our local charities, etc., I took the top five locally based high-tech firms (Cisco Intel, Applied Materials, Oracle, and SAP) and compared them in aggregate (see the last post) to five other local firms who didn't reach very far up that same list (Apple, Google, HP, eBay, and Facebook).  Call them GROUP A and GROUP B

GROUP A  (working from the most recent fiscal year reports)
ANNUAL REV = $163 B, growing 2.5% last year
Annual PROFIT = $36B, a healthy 21.5% margin, completely flat from last year
CASH and Equiv = $103B, up 6%
TOTAL ASSETS = $306B, up 11%
TOTAL DONATIONS locally = $32.1M, up 33%

GROUP B 

ANNUAL REV = $360 B, growing 8% last year
Annual PROFIT = $40B, a fairly healthy 11.0% margin, down 20% from last year (HP the drag)
CASH and Equiv = $223B, up 18%
TOTAL ASSETS = $462B, up 12%
TOTAL DONATIONS locally are LESS THAN $3.0M, with eBay doing $1.0M announced.

So, lessee, Group B, which tends to get much more favorable Stock Market press, wouldn't you agree, makes the same amount of net profit, has twice as much cash which is growing 3x as fast, and more than twice the annual revenue, which is growing three times as fast...

and GUESS WHAT--the offshore tax shelters for these five are working JUST FINE, and the net charitable contributions at home are ONE-TENTH that of their collegial companies.  So the 'giving' companies are THIRTY TIMES as generous as their somewhat more famous colleagues.

Thank goodness for the contributions of those who suport our local agencies!