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Friday, September 18, 2026

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@convequity

Convequity on X

The AI build is moves more aggressively off the balance sheet Convequity’s debt scan across $MSFT $AMZN $GOOGL and $META: what these companies borrow in public is rising slowly. What they have promised to spend later — leases not yet started, equipment orders, contracted compute — is rising much faster. In 2Q26 that gap is the widest in four quarters. Off-book commitments are running toward +316% year-on-year. On-book debt is barely moving. If you only watch headline borrowings, you miss the cycle. MSFT is the clearest case. On-book debt +15% YoY. Off-book commitments +138%. That is why its all-in financing load is about 17x reported borrowings. Microsoft is under pressure from two sides: shareholders who want more AI spend, and shareholders who want less capex and faster returns. The compromise is to slow the capex it puts on its own books and lock in capacity from $IREN, $NBIS and other neo-clouds instead. How that works: IREN or NBIS borrows, builds the site and owns the chips. Microsoft signs a multi-year contract to pay for the capacity. Microsoft does not put the building on its balance sheet. It takes a future bill — rent and service payments that show up later as operating cost. Asset risk moves to the neo-cloud. Payment risk stays with Microsoft. GOOGL looks similar on a multiple and is doing something different. All-in commitments are 10.2x borrowings: $100bn of headline debt, $121bn including leases, $902bn off-book. $811bn of that off-book pile is purchase orders for its own stack — TPUs and the kit around them — not rented neo-cloud sites. On-book +190% YoY. Off-book +836%. That multiple is Google buying the factory, not renting it. META is closer to Google than to Microsoft: on-book +127%, off-book +680%. Some of Meta’s orders are reserved compute from CoreWeave and Nebius, which Meta will expense as it uses the capacity. Most of the pile is still Meta committing to build and buy for itself. AMZN is the most balanced of the four (+59% on-book / +80% off-book). Both lines are rising together. If the cycle breaks, Microsoft is less stuck with buildings and chips it owns. It is more stuck with bills it already signed. Google is more exposed because more of the capital is already spoken for on its own account. If compute gets scarcer, the extra megawatts IREN and NBIS have not yet sold can go to whoever pays more. Microsoft then has to wait or pay up. Because it owns less of the physical stack, it has less spare capacity it can simply switch on — which means higher compute costs and tighter margins. Powerful cycle. Not a broad bubble. The heat is in the promises, not the 10-Q debt line. Full AI Bubble Barometer available at Convequity.
@negligible_cap

Negligible Capital on X

The rising tide is lifting all AI threatened boats… but should it? Some weekend thoughts as the saaspocalypse seems to be winding down -- TLDR: Long software, short consulting / IT services is interesting: Consulting and IT service names like ACN, CTSH, INFY, GLOB, etc. have rebounded sharply alongside enterprise software names (eg. CRM, NOW, WDAY, TEAM blah blah blah) recently. These moves have been driven pretty much entirely by factor rotation - the rebound in consulting names comes from software’s new AI tailwind rather than being earned by their own fundamentals $ACN, for example, is up 50% in the last two months since the June lows, despite posting their 2nd consecutive guidance cut last quarter -- $CTSH up 67%, $GLOB up 40%, $INFY and $TCS both up around 20%. Despite the rebound, most of their results were very “meh” – several misses in growth / guidance expectations (largely attributed to conflict in the middle east, which probably has some merit), leading to some violent selloffs (Eg. Accenture dropped 18% on June 18 after earnings) Meanwhile, software as we all know is seeing genuine acceleration in some cases, especially in their AI-related revenue metrics, and the narrative is quickly evolving to one in which software is likely to benefit from AI (largely due to strong moats) The same can’t be said for IT services names. Unlike software, where AI is seemingly becoming more additive for their platforms, AI is likely to be structurally deflationary for labor-based IT service models. The current pricing model faces disruption as enterprises seek greater efficiency in delivery and shift towards more outcome-based work. Customers are likely to demand service providers pass on AI productivity gains via lower pricing, especially for contract renewals. Also clients are delaying IT spend due to concerns over rapid AI investments / prioritization of spending elsewhere (eg. IBM’s pre-release, which saw consulting revs miss expectations, among other issues). The growth uncertainty alone likely puts a ceiling on multiples Anyways I know I’m making some very broad generalizations and am probably wrong and this isn’t financial advice but I’ll close it out reminding everyone that Accenture has 800k employees

Investor Letters

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