Microsoft's Digital Transformation

Katy Burne, editor of Aerial View, interviewed George Zinn, Corporate Vice President and Treasurer at Microsoft, about liquidity management, the investing climate, and how cloud computing is transforming his team’s workflows.

Katy Burne: How do you manage the complexities of investing more than $130 billion in cash globally, while balancing dividends, buybacks and M&A?

George Zinn: We’ve got a dual mandate: we want to protect and preserve capital, but we also want to invest in a prudent fashion. Before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, it was really a tale of two balance sheets. After the Jobs Act, the two balance sheets were combined and as a result, we moved to a much more asset/liability matching posture with our debt as it rolls off. It’s fair to say we still have a lot of Treasuries and agencies. If you look at the duration of our investing portfolio, we’re far more risk averse than some of our peers with similar balance sheets.