Cash is the lifeblood of your business. There are very few things in business that will kill you, but running our of cash is one of those things. You can recover from almost any other mistake, but if you run out of cash you're dead.
In so many ways, our business is very, very unique. For example, in India, people pay with cash, and we accept cash from day one. And a lot of people in India pay with cash. And that's part of our business model.
We want to use cash. The reason we haven't used our cash two years ago, we just didn't find things that were that attractive. But when people talk about cash being king, it's not king if it just sits there and never does anything. There are times when cash buys more than other times, and this is one of the other times when it buys a fair amount more, so we use it.
Our attitude toward cash generation and asset management came out of our own thought process. After we acquired a number of businesses we reflected on aspects of business. Our own conclusion was that the key was cash flow.
The essence of a good investment manager is one who studies a given business and extrapolates the future cash flows that the business is likely to generate over the next several years. Based on the cash flow and asset assessment, they can then arrive at their expected rate of return if they bought a fraction of that business at a given price.
In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.
When I ran a small IT services business in the 1990s, it had strong recurring revenues - yet I couldn't accurately forecast cash flow for even the next few quarters. Small changes in the customer base or losing/hiring a few key employees could create massive swings in cash flow.
There are two kinds of businesses: The first earns 12%, and you can take it out at the end of the year. The second earns 12%, but all the excess cash must be reinvested - there's never any cash. It reminds me of the guy who looks at all of his equipment and says, 'There's all of my profit.' We hate that kind of business.
I love Johnny Cash, and I respect Johnny Cash. He's the biggest. He's like an Elvis in this business, but no, he's never been the rebel.
We wonder, what if we got rid of cash? After all, cash is what keeps terrorists, drug dealers and gun dealers in business.
The idea of money being something physical is almost entirely a fiction. Sure, you can go to your ATM and pull out cash. And you can feel cash in your back pocket and have some tangible comfort there - but in reality, the majority of your money is a number on a screen.
There's lots of things that can be solved with cash. And there's occasional things that can't be solved with cash, which become a bureaucratic nightmare for some reason, and there's no distinction between the two.
I was a kid who was born and raised on Johnny Cash. My father played 'At Folsom Prison' constantly. Cash was the only thing I remember coming from our big, warm stereo console. Even then, I knew Cash was uncool. I knew he was an unhip Republican.
Tournament play demands patience to survive and win. Winning at cash games demands a whole other level of thought and deception. You need to reach into your bag of tricks and run the occasional big bluff to be a consistent cash game winner.
If your cash is about to run out, you have to cut your cash flow. CEOs have to make those decisions and live with them however painful they may be. You have to act and act now; and act in the best interest of the company as a whole, even if it means that some people in the company who are your best friends have to work somewhere else.
Cash, though, is to a business as oxygen is to an individual: never thought about when it is present, the only thing in mind when it is absent... When bills come due, only cash is legal tender. Don't leave home without it.
I tend to go with things people need. Obviously with the barbershop, people will need haircuts regardless of the economy. In a down economy, I choose businesses that don't require a lot of start-up cash or a cash injection on a regular basis. They might need some initially, but not often after. Rental of properties is a good business in a down economy as people struggle with mortgages.