While hardly unknown, Alphabet (GOOGL, Financial) continues to grow at a rapid rate for such a large company. Alphabet’s scale is staggering, with at least five applications used regularly by more than a billion people and the largest digital ad platform in the world. It also owns YouTube, which as a standalone business would be larger than most television networks, and Android, the most widely used operating system on smartphones and increasingly on other devices.
On an annual basis, the company is expected to generate close to $40 per share in earnings, despite still losing about $4 per share after-tax in its corporate venture capital investments. The stock is no longer cheap, but neither is it overpriced given its valuation, prospects for growth, and generation of free cash flow. Recently, for the first time, the company approved a significant share repurchase. With nearly $120 per share in cash and almost no debt, the company is in a unique position to be able to spend heavily to improve its business and benefit its shareholders at the same time. Its biggest threat would appear to be regulation rather than direct competition.
From Larry Pitkowski's GoodHaven Fund 2016 annual letter.
