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Comment by brianobush | Hacker News Reader

Seems that they are using AWS profits to fund other parts of the business. I would guess that would negate any benefits to a spinoff.

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No, they could get billions to fund the rest of the business with by selling it. It would be a huge IPO. Potentially wirth more than the profits.

If they spin it off, it likely wouldn't IPO, Amazon would be the only stock holder. All profits from AWS are already factored into Amazon's stock price, another IPO would be unnecessary

What you're talking about already exists.

Amazon Web Services, Inc. is a separate corporation wholly owned by Amazon.com Inc

There's no fundamental reason they couldn't spin off and then IPO, right?

I agree, it seems unlikely in the near future given Amazon's history, but it could happen. Maybe 10-20 years from now when Bezos has retired, a new CEO or three has been in place and the public markets aren't as forgiving of Amazon as they are now.

They'll spin it off one day, for the same reason Walmart sold off its massive trucking business.

AWS is eventually going to be a $30 billion sales business, capable of generating $3+ billion in net income. It'll legitimately be a nearly $100 billion market cap company unto itself in ten years. If Amazon is smart, they'll wait until it achieves a much larger scale before spinning it off, it's obviously a huge pot of gold in the equity value.

If they IPO'd, Bezos would be under humungous pressure to give it all out as dividends. Given his business beliefs, it'll never happen. It's not like they have cashflow problems anyway.

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