All rivers flow into the sea: Apple holds TEN PER CENT of corporate America's dosh

Fruity firm's sitting pretty on a $147bn pile of greenbacks

Apple holds just over one in ten of all corporate America's dollars, according to an analysis by ratings firm Moody's.

In a report first cited by the Wall Street Journal, Moody's said the fruity firm holds a $147bn cash reserve. Microsoft struggled into second place, with its war chest amounting to about $77bn - just under half of Apple's total.

Moody's analysis, which excludes financial firms, found that the tech sector boasted the largest cash reserves of all industries, holding a total of $515bn, with the healthcare and pharmaceuticals sector in distant second with total cash reserves of $146bn.

Excluding financial companies, American corporations held a total of about $1.48tn in cash as of June this year. Total reserves have grown by about 2 per cent from the $1.45tn that US corporations were hoarding at the end of last year, and a massive 81 per cent from the paltry $820bn companies held at the end of 2006.

Naturally, cash is concentrated at the very top of the corporate food chain, with the top 50 of the 1,000 companies that Moody's surveyed controlling 62 per cent of the cash.

Apple are known to have a predilection for storing cash overseas, in a bid to duck the 35 per cent US tax rate.

In total, Moody's reckoned that corporate America holds about 61 per cent of its total dosh overseas, amounting to about $900bn.

“In the absence of tax reform, we expect overseas cash to continue to grow,” Moody’s analysts concluded. ®