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欧州でも膨らむ企業の内部留保 成長の足かせに
2012年 3月 23日 13:49 JST
国際金融協会（IIF）によると、米国、ユーロ圏、英国、日本の企業が保有する現金ないし現金同等物は約7兆7500億ドル（約640兆2000億円）と、前例のない金額に上っている。
記者: Stephen Fidler
Firms' Cash Hoarding Stunts Europe
By STEPHEN FIDLER
Across Europe, banks, households and governments are pulling in their horns at the same time.
Banks are struggling to rebuild capital and repair the damage wrought by poor lending and investment decisions they made before the financial crisis, and are wary about new lending.
In many countries, households are struggling to pay down the heavy debts they built up in the boom years, and cutting back on consumption.
Governments are retrenching, too. For some, it is the price of aid from Germany; for others, it is out of fear that if they don't, bond investors will cut their access to finance. A minority, including Germany―whose government approved plans on Wednesday to balance its budget in 2014, two years earlier than planned―are doing it because they think it's a good thing.
It is a depressing recipe for a classic "balance-sheet recession" as the public and large parts of the private sector try to repair the excesses of the boom and rebuild balance sheets.
One part of the economy, however, is an important exception to the rule: companies, particularly large ones. Across Europe, corporations are sitting on a mountain of cash. The trouble is, they aren't spending much of it. This means one possible way out of Europe's economic crisis―a big boost in business investment―is closed off.
It's not only in Europe that companies are hoarding piles of cash. According to the Institute of International Finance, the same is true across a number of mature and emerging economies. In January, the Washington-based organization that speaks for financial institutions world-wide estimated that corporations in the U.S., the euro zone, the U.K. and Japan held some $7.75 trillion in cash, or near equivalents, an unprecedented sum. Apple Inc.'s decision this week to pay investors from its own $97 billion cash balance won't make much of a dent in that.
Heard on the Street
Why Companies Aren't Spending
In Europe, the problem is particularly acute. According to Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform think tank in London, the ratio of investment to gross domestic product in Europe is at a 60-year low even as companies pile on cash. Corporate cash holdings are now €2 trillion ($2.64 trillion) across the euro zone and an extraordinary £750 billion ($1.19 trillion) in the U.K.
In a speech in September, Adam Posen, a U.S. economist who sits on the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, depicted the corporate cash piles in the U.K. as a symptom of the private sector's unwillingness to take enough constructive risks. That is a response in part, he said, to an excessive accumulation of debt by households and bank losses. "Some correction from the risk-taking behavior of the boom years is justified, but this has gone too far and persisted far too long," he said.
Companies are piling up cash for a combination of reasons, say analysts. One is a reaction to the financial crisis. Companies that built excessive debts before the crisis are paying them down. Firms also are hoarding cash because of broken banking systems: Banks have retreated from lending and companies are building cash buffers to compensate. For continental Europe, where companies still draw a majority of their finance from banks rather than from the capital markets, the retreat of bank lenders is significant.
Mr. Tilford argues that another reason is government policies. "Excessive fiscal austerity," he says, "has snuffed out Europe's tentative economic recovery and threatens a swath of the euro zone with a slump." Why invest to produce goods and services for economies that have little prospect of growing?
Other factors may play a role. Lower corporate tax rates and labor-market reforms aimed at reducing the power of trade unions have boosted the income of the corporate sector versus the household sector.
This suggests, Mr. Tilford argues, that policies aimed at further depressing the share of labor in national income will further undermine economic growth. He suggests increasing corporate income won't help spur investment―while squeezing households by cutting wages will damp growth.
This argument is being made in Brussels by the Greek government, which is seeking to head off pressure from the country's official lenders for further wage cuts as a way to increase the competitiveness of the Greek economy.
Greece has cut its minimum wage by 22%―and 32% in the case of young workers―but further efforts to trim wages to boost the international competitiveness of the Greek economy are likely. Further depressing Greek wages "is unnecessary and potentially destructive," said one senior Greek official this week. If more cuts are imposed, "the recession in Greece will be double-digit," he added.
The other implication is that cutting corporate taxes won't help spur investment. That view doesn't seem to be held by the British government: Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne lowered corporation tax from 26% to 24% in his annual budget speech on Wednesday, in the first step of a plan to cut it to 20%.
There is, Mr. Tilford suggests, another factor helping to build corporate cash piles: distorted incentives for senior executives. With their remuneration linked to short-term performance, senior executives have little incentives to embark on big, long-term investment projects that won't yield benefits until after the executive has moved on. "Firms are being run for cash rather than growth, with damaging implications for economic activity," he says.
Write to Stephen Fidler at stephen.fidler@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared Mar. 24, 2012, on page A10 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Firms' Cash Hoarding Stunts Europe.
http://jp.wsj.com/Economy/Global-Economy/node_413328
金融機関除く米国企業の手元資金、11年は記録更新＝ムーディーズ
2012年 3月 15日 11:49 JST
米格付け会社ムーディーズ・インベスターズ・サービスによると、同社が格付け対象とする米国企業（金融機関を除く）の2011年12月時点の手元資金は計1兆2400億ドルと、前年（1兆2000億ドル）に比べて3％増加し、2年連続で過去最高を更新した。
http://jp.wsj.com/Business-Companies/node_408426
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