Jim Spence |
"We project 24% compound annual revenue growth from 2009 to 2014, with revenue exceeding $2 billion. We think their core business will drive this growth. We predict that operating margins will hit 32% by 2014, as product mix shifts to higher-margin consumables and the company reduces its tax rate substantially by moving more manufacturing to Singapore."
As investors we interpret this sort of information as a positive. It tells us that the management team is growing their business and also recognizing the precarious nature of a hyper-competitive world. The decision to move manufacturing operations to Singapore tells us management is taking the necessary step to keep the onerous burden of tax costs down so the company can continue to fund research and development and offer better and more affordable products to customers. While we completely understand and appreciate the competitive dynamics in place, as loyal American citizens we are more outraged than ever that our anti-business domestic policy-makers think that prosperous job creating businesses operate in a vacumn.
Many of the most powerful politicians in our country hold the unswaying belief that they can impose high tax rates (and less competitiveness) on payroll makers and job creators without consequences. Unfortunately, the only thing naiive anti-business fools making policy in the U.S. are getting away with, is driving payrolls and the addition of more good paying jobs overseas. While the "big oil" witch hunts might make for good sound bytes, as long as prosperity-seeking nations like Singapore want these businesses more than U.S. policymakers do, our relative living standards are heading lower. The annual damage caused by the majority of voters not grasping this basic competitive premise, amounts to many trillions of dollars.