Shareholders like to hear that employees are having to come to the office, being fired, or pissing in bottles. It means more money for the shareholders.
How would any of these things necessarily correlate to more money?
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Blackmist@feddit.uk 11 months ago
CEOs will admit nothing.
Shareholders like to hear that employees are having to come to the office, being fired, or pissing in bottles. It means more money for the shareholders.
“Every hour we’ll beat our lowest performing employee with a pool ball in a sock.”
The line goes up.
SCB@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Blackmist@feddit.uk 11 months ago
Because line goes up.
It doesn’t matter how profitable the company is. It only matters how much the people who want to buy your shares are prepared to pay for them.
SCB@lemmy.world 11 months ago
It doesn’t matter how profitable the company is. It only matters how much the people who want to buy your shares are prepared to pay for them.
Man I am not being mean here, I promise, but you need to hear this: Stop getting your worldview from memes.
Nollij@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
(Not OP) There is some truth to it, though. Profitability and stock price are, at best, loosely related. There was a time (possibly right now; I didn’t bother to check) where Tesla’s market cap (total value of all stock) was higher than the entire rest of the automakers combined. This is despite the former having only a fraction of sales, revenue, profits, and even projected sales of most of their peers. Much of this is a gold rush/pump-and-dump cycle, where earlier investors expect to profit from later investors.
That being said, I acknowledge your main point that it’s the perception of (future) profits that generally drives stock prices. Tesla is an exception. Most stocks move on more traditional drivers, such as value and growth.
I don’t see how forcing people back to the office will drive profits, though. Office space is expensive. At my employer (pre-COVID), it was over $500 per employee per month. That was the grand total for rent, HVAC, networking, etc. It was second only to salaries in terms of expenses. This is in a city that is regularly featured in the lists of most affordable places to live in the US. Is there some study (esp Gartner, since that’s what the suits blindly follow) that shows higher productivity in office?
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Poor thing doesn’t understand that companies pay their shareholders money, and the more profit they make, the more money they can pay their shareholders.
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 11 months ago
It doesn’t matter how profitable the company is.
Do you know what a dividend is?
stockRot@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Why are shareholders happy to hear that businesses are spending unnecessary money on renting office spaces?
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Because they’re disconnected from reality. Same reason they’re fine with co2 emissions even though they live in the same biosphere.
go_go_gadget@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Because most shareholders are boomers.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 11 months ago
Because they also hold shares in the companies that rent offices.
None of these businesses have given up their office spaces. They’re also likely on very long term contracts. Not using them is wasting money.
HauntedCupcake@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I agree with you, but want to point out that not using offices is just perceived as wasting money. They don’t actually lose any money if the office is used or not, they might even save money on utility costs and supplies. It’s just sunk cost fallacy.
SCB@lemmy.world 11 months ago
You know this isn’t true, right? Like, you know that?
meyotch@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
Never heard if REIT?
KevonLooney@lemm.ee 11 months ago
But companies are owned separately. Reducing office costs would increase the value of the renting company while decreasing the value of commercial real estate, regardless of their ownership.
Investors owning both real estate and the companies renting that real estate are not colluding. One investor who owns 90% stocks and 10% real estate is not going to help out another investor who owns 90% real estate and 10% stocks.
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Source?
crsu@lemmy.world 11 months ago
They own REITs
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 11 months ago
They don’t, it’s a statement that people are repeating because they heard it from someone else, with nobody stopping to actually think about it.
There is no conspiracy by CEOs to get people back to the office to prop up real estate values.