David Winters Worries About Bubble, But LOVES Google by Paul R. La Monica, CNN Money
David Winters of Wintergreen Advisers is the same way. The activist investor, who is arguably most well-known for going to war with Coca-Cola (KO) in 2014 over its compensation plan, is not a big tech fan at all.
Winters even refers to a group of (mostly) tech companies that dominate the market as the “Terrible Ten” — Amazon (AMZN, Tech30), Apple (AAPL, Tech30), Google owner Alphabet (GOOGL, Tech30), eBay (EBAY), Facebook (FB, Tech30), Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30), Priceline (PCLN, Tech30), Netflix (NFLX, Tech30), Salesforce (CRM, Tech30) and Starbucks (SBUX).
But one of his top holdings is Alphabet — which for the sake of user friendliness I’ll now just refer to as Google.
Why?
“We bought it during a time of tremendous skepticism. But they continue to go from strength to strength,” he said, referring to Google’s dominance in search, online video via YouTube and mobile through its Android operating system.
Winters said that what he likes best about Google is that it is more like a “modern media company” than tech. And he has historically invested in newspapers and TV operators because of their steady revenue and earnings growth.
Winters also raved about Google’s hiring of Ruth Porat, formerly of Morgan Stanley (MS), as the company’s CFO. Many investors have praised Porat for helping bring about a little more financial discipline at Google.See the full article here.
