By 1982 Quant Tech had a dominant market share in its business and was earning $100 million on revenues of $1 billion. It’s costs were virtually all costs to compensate technical employees engaged in design work. Direct employee compensation cost amounted to 70% of revenues. Of this 70%, 30% was base salaries and 40% was incentive bonuses being paid out under an elaborate system designed by the founder. All compensation was paid in cash. There were no stock options because the old man had considered the accounting treatment required for stock options to be “weak, corrupt and contemptible,” and he no more wanted bad accounting in his business than he wanted bad engineering. Moreover, the old man believed in tailoring his huge incentive bonuses to precise performance standards established for individuals or small groups, instead of allowing what he considered undesirable compensation outcomes, both high and low, such as he believed occurred under other companies’ stock option plans.
Yet, even under the old man’s system, most of Quant Tech’s devoted longtime employees were becoming rich, or sure to get rich. This was happening because the employees were buying Quant Tech stock in the market, just like non-employee shareholders. The old man had always figured that people smart enough, and self-disciplined enough, to design power plants could reasonably be expected to take care of their own financial affairs in this way. He would sometimes advise an employee to buy Quant Tech stock, but more paternalistic than that he would not become.
By the time the founder died in 1982, Quant Tech was debt free and, except as a reputation-enhancer, really didn’t need any shareholders’ equity to run its business, no matter how fast revenues grew. However, the old man believed with Ben Franklin that “it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright,” and he wanted Quant Tech to stand upright. Moreover, he loved his business and his coworkers and always wanted to have on hand large amounts of cash equivalents so as to be able to maximize work-out or work-up chances if an unexpected adversity or opportunity came along. And so in 1982 Quant Tech had on hand $500 million in cash equivalents, amounting to 50% of revenues.
Possessing a strong balance sheet and a productive culture and also holding a critical mass of expertise in a rapidly changing and rapidly growing business, Quant Tech, using the old man’s methods, by 1982 was destined for 20 years ahead to maintain profits at 10% of revenues while revenues increased at 20% per year. After this 20 years, commencing in 2003, Quant Tech’s profit margin would hold for a very long time at 10% while revenue growth would slow down to 4% per year. But no one at Quant Tech knew precisely when its inevitable period of slow revenue growth would begin.
The old man’s dividend policy for Quant Tech was simplicity itself: He never paid a dividend. Instead, all earnings simply piled up in cash equivalents….
The Great Financial Scandal of 2003 – Excerpt
Charlie Munger