Tech Companies Aren't Sitting Around Waiting For Friendly Cash Repatriation Legislation

With a mere few weeks of his presidency, President Donald Trump made one thing perfectly clear: What he promised during the campaign trail, he will deliver on.

One of the campaign promises Trump made is to make it more favorable for U.S. companies to repatriate the hundreds of billions of dollars sitting overseas. The problem is Trump isn't working fast enough for some companies.

According to a Bloomberg report, Apple Inc. AAPL and Microsoft Corporation MSFT aren't sitting around waiting for action and have sold between them $27 billion worth of debt to fund their operations, repay maturing debt and buy back their own stock.

Jordan Chafin, a researcher who specializes in debt, told Bloomberg the reality is companies can't "bank on repatriation until lit actually happens." In the meantime, companies have a "real need" for cash.

For example, Microsoft is holding $25.1 billion of short-term debt that matures at the end of September 2017 but is holding just $6.5 billion in cash in the United States, so it has no choice but to issue new debt.

Meanwhile, Apple held $16 billion in cash at the end of 2016 but has already pledged to return $49 billion to shareholders. Similar to Microsoft, the company has little choice but to tap the debt market.

Apple's CEO Tim Cook also commented on the much-expected legislation and said he is "confident" that "some sort of tax reform" this year. However, it is unclear what the reform will look like and when it will come.