> Facebook's current share price basically values it as a utility already
Market cap is a measure of investors' beliefs of a company's future free cash flows. Regulated utilities have capped profits, so their valuation tends to be lower. Facebook absolutely does not have the valuation of a utility. Name a utility with a market cap of 400 billion USD (hint: the largest electric utility in the world has a market cap of $86.16 bilion).
Duke energy and Facebook have identical P/E ratios. Don’t have time to dig deeper but given that I don’t see regulation destroying shareholder value, the market sees them on a utility trajectory going forward.
Market cap is a measure of investors' beliefs of a company's future free cash flows. Regulated utilities have capped profits, so their valuation tends to be lower. Facebook absolutely does not have the valuation of a utility. Name a utility with a market cap of 400 billion USD (hint: the largest electric utility in the world has a market cap of $86.16 bilion).