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In the category of 'potentally stupid questions', why can't VCs also make money from dividends?

by donw 15y ago

citricsquid 15y ago
This is my confusion too. I was under the impression that was the normal way that VCs made their money and companies going public or being sold is the outlying (but most desirable) result.
il 15y ago
VCs don't want your dividends, they want you to deploy that capital into growing the company.
- donw 15y ago
  At early stages, I can completely understand this. Consider Craigslist. Fantastically successful business, makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year using less people than you'd need to run a McDonalds. Growing this kind of company is not capital-intensive beyond a certain level. So, should you end up building a Craigslist, why would the VC firm want an exit, rather than a continuous (and large) flow of checks from dividends?
  - il 15y ago
    Craigslist is a horrendously mismanaged business. I wouldn't be surprised to see AirBnB dwarf Craigslist soon- that's the kind of company VCs want to invest in, not something like Craigslist that has been stagnating for years.
    - prodigal_erik 15y ago
      AirBnB started out by attacking Craigslist as well as the commons. They probably will win; I'm continually disappointed at how eagerly we reward bottom-feeders.
    - DennisP 15y ago
      Craig isn't optimizing for profit. He's optimizing for maximum user benefit, and letting the users decide what benefits them the most. Mostly they want free classifieds without paid advertising attached, so that's what he gives them. In a few cases, the users wanted to pay for classifieds, and those users are the only reason Craigslist makes money. Judging Craigslist by the standards of a profit-seeking business is entirely missing the point.
aclements18 15y ago
VCs invest through funds that 'shut down' after a few years so, unlike mutuals fund that exists indefinitely, they have a limited timeframe to make that investment pay off. VCs have the expectation that most investments will fail, so the only way to return a profit to their investors (LPs) is to have a few really big hits. For example imagine a VC with a fund that only holds two companies, and has invested $1mm in each. The first has dividend paying 8% (for a total of $80,000) year over year. That wouldn't be bad on its own, but say the other investment lost 75% of its value (or $750k). The overall return for that combined portfolio over a 10 year period would be pretty poor. The real value would be if one of those investments of $1mm in equity turned into $20mm in equity over the 10 years through an acquisition or IPO. If that were the case, a dividend of 8% would be very small in comparison.
patio11 15y ago
Not a stupid question, but it isn't their model. Some reasons why it isn't their model: a) The primary customer of a VC firm is not an entrepreneur. Rather, it is a limited partner: a personal (natural or otherwise) who has tens of millions of dollars allocated out of a larger pile of hundreds of millions specifically for a bucket called Risk Capital in their portfolio allocation strategy. Their only mission for that money is Go Big Or Go Home: they're interested in assets which reliably pay 5% per year but NOT FROM THAT BUCKET. For that bucket they're looking for 20%+ a year over a 10 year period regardless of what happens in the generic stock market and they're willing to pay two and twenty to make it happen. b) A VC fund is organized as a 10 year commitment between the VCs and their limited partners, and has to wind up at the end of 10 years. Having large amounts of residual illiquid value in the portfolio, like shares of a private company which pays dividends, are the opposite of a win condition. If you value the future dividend stream annuity-style at, say, $100 million NPV or give the VC the option of an acquisition by Google at $90 million in a later year of the fund, the VC will push for the acquisition every day of the week and twice on Sunday. They need that win before the fund closes and they lose the ability to take their 20% of the winnings from it (and primp it to investors in subsequent funds they may manage). c) Just a social norm: US tech stocks do not historically pay high dividends -- they typically reinvest into new lines of business, like an office productivity company deciding to successfully remake the domestic videogame industry or unsuccessfully compete with their hated advertising company rival, or a domestic purveyor of status goods with microchips in them deciding to make smaller status goods with microchips in them and become the biggest company ever. There are exceptions -- MSFT pays a modest dividend and once did a gigantic distribution -- but they're largely marginal rather than decisive.
- donw 15y ago
  Patrick, sometimes I wonder if there's anything you don't have a deep understanding of. :) So, in this case, a profitable company might make the case to buy its shares back from the VC at the same price point they would see in with a 'successful' acquisition.

In the category of 'potentally stupid questions', why can't VCs also make money from dividends?

by donw 15y ago

In the category of 'potentally stupid questions', why can't VCs also make money from dividends?

This is my confusion too. I was under the impression that was the normal way that VCs made their money and companies going public or being sold is the outlying (but most desirable) result.

il 15y ago

VCs don't want your dividends, they want you to deploy that capital into growing the company.

donw 15y ago
At early stages, I can completely understand this. Consider Craigslist. Fantastically successful business, makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year using less people than you'd need to run a McDonalds. Growing this kind of company is not capital-intensive beyond a certain level. So, should you end up building a Craigslist, why would the VC firm want an exit, rather than a continuous (and large) flow of checks from dividends?
- il 15y ago
  Craigslist is a horrendously mismanaged business. I wouldn't be surprised to see AirBnB dwarf Craigslist soon- that's the kind of company VCs want to invest in, not something like Craigslist that has been stagnating for years.
  - prodigal_erik 15y ago
    AirBnB started out by attacking Craigslist as well as the commons. They probably will win; I'm continually disappointed at how eagerly we reward bottom-feeders.
  - DennisP 15y ago
    Craig isn't optimizing for profit. He's optimizing for maximum user benefit, and letting the users decide what benefits them the most. Mostly they want free classifieds without paid advertising attached, so that's what he gives them. In a few cases, the users wanted to pay for classifieds, and those users are the only reason Craigslist makes money. Judging Craigslist by the standards of a profit-seeking business is entirely missing the point.

aclements18 15y ago

VCs invest through funds that 'shut down' after a few years so, unlike mutuals fund that exists indefinitely, they have a limited timeframe to make that investment pay off. VCs have the expectation that most investments will fail, so the only way to return a profit to their investors (LPs) is to have a few really big hits. For example imagine a VC with a fund that only holds two companies, and has invested $1mm in each. The first has dividend paying 8% (for a total of $80,000) year over year. That wouldn't be bad on its own, but say the other investment lost 75% of its value (or $750k). The overall return for that combined portfolio over a 10 year period would be pretty poor. The real value would be if one of those investments of $1mm in equity turned into $20mm in equity over the 10 years through an acquisition or IPO. If that were the case, a dividend of 8% would be very small in comparison.

patio11 15y ago

Not a stupid question, but it isn't their model. Some reasons why it isn't their model: a) The primary customer of a VC firm is not an entrepreneur. Rather, it is a limited partner: a personal (natural or otherwise) who has tens of millions of dollars allocated out of a larger pile of hundreds of millions specifically for a bucket called Risk Capital in their portfolio allocation strategy. Their only mission for that money is Go Big Or Go Home: they're interested in assets which reliably pay 5% per year but NOT FROM THAT BUCKET. For that bucket they're looking for 20%+ a year over a 10 year period regardless of what happens in the generic stock market and they're willing to pay two and twenty to make it happen. b) A VC fund is organized as a 10 year commitment between the VCs and their limited partners, and has to wind up at the end of 10 years. Having large amounts of residual illiquid value in the portfolio, like shares of a private company which pays dividends, are the opposite of a win condition. If you value the future dividend stream annuity-style at, say, $100 million NPV or give the VC the option of an acquisition by Google at $90 million in a later year of the fund, the VC will push for the acquisition every day of the week and twice on Sunday. They need that win before the fund closes and they lose the ability to take their 20% of the winnings from it (and primp it to investors in subsequent funds they may manage). c) Just a social norm: US tech stocks do not historically pay high dividends -- they typically reinvest into new lines of business, like an office productivity company deciding to successfully remake the domestic videogame industry or unsuccessfully compete with their hated advertising company rival, or a domestic purveyor of status goods with microchips in them deciding to make smaller status goods with microchips in them and become the biggest company ever. There are exceptions -- MSFT pays a modest dividend and once did a gigantic distribution -- but they're largely marginal rather than decisive.

donw 15y ago
Patrick, sometimes I wonder if there's anything you don't have a deep understanding of. :) So, in this case, a profitable company might make the case to buy its shares back from the VC at the same price point they would see in with a 'successful' acquisition.