Microsoft Corporation has launched a major investment in the state of Georgia, in Floyd County, on Huffaker Road in Rome. This investment will exceed $1 billion and will include the construction of a data center to support the Azure platform. “This is a tremendous economic opportunity for our community that will have positive impacts for decades to come,” said Jimmy Byars, Chairman of the Rome Floyd County Development Authority. The site itself is 347 acres in size. The company will also create 150 senior management jobs at the Georgia data center with this investment. This project is expected to take about three years to complete.
Microsoft Azure (“Azure”) is Microsoft Inc’s global technology infrastructure, which consists of two key components – physical infrastructure and interconnecting network components. This technology infrastructure consists of more than 200 physical data centers, organized into regions and connected by one of the largest interconnected technology networks in the world.
The high EPS (earnings per share) growth rate for Microsoft (cash value per share) was 21.3%, so investors should focus on the projected growth in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ-MSFT)’s share price. Multinational investment firms expect earnings per share for (NASDAQ-MSFT) to grow 13.2% this year, outperforming the IT industry average of 11.9%. Microsoft also received the highest EPS growth score from analysts at investment magazine Zacks.
The company also pays regular quarterly dividends to its shareholders. Currently, the dividend yield is 0.86% p.a. The actual dividend amount was approved by the AGM at $0.75 per share. The company also currently has a known date for the use of the stock’s dividend payment (NASDAQ-MSFT), the so-called Ex-Dividend-Date), which has been set for November 15, 2023. The company has set the actual dividend payment date (Pay-Date) for January 25, 2024. According to analysts at brokerage firms and financial strategists at investment banks, the stock price can be expected to rise in the short to medium term investment horizon. The average target price for the short- to medium-term investment horizon has been set at $408.83 per share.
