The portrayal of capital investment being essentially zero is claimed to be misleading in the linked article.

That is not a claim that was made. From the NYT article:

> As for capital investments, the company spent less in the 2018 fiscal year than it had projected in December 2017, before the tax law passed. It spent even less in 2019. Much of its savings have gone to reward shareholders: FedEx spent more than $2 billion on stock buybacks and dividend increases in the 2019 fiscal year, up from $1.6 billion in 2018, and more than double the amount the company spent on buybacks and dividends in fiscal year 2017.

edit: Note: the parent commenter ninja-edited in the word "essentially" after I made this comment.

That framing is incredibly negative and obviously communicates it as "near zero" to the passing reader. Vague terminology of "less than projected" is the way they choose to frame it in the first sentence, and "spent even less in the next year" is the next sentence. NYT then chooses to completely omit the actual numerical figures of FedEx's investments, and instead highlights figures in the unrelated category of dividend payments (which were actually smaller than recent capital expenditures).

I'd say that paragraph you quoted showcases the misleading writing very nicely.

I get _capital investments are going down_ from that. I don't know how you are reading _near zero_ from it. It doesn't get more "passing reader" than me in this case, I know nothing about what happened here and I have zero interest in finding out.

FedEx CapEx in $B '09-'18

$2.6,$3.4,$3.6,$3.6,$3.3,$3.8,$5.0,$5.0,$5.1,$5.6

Do you think the article fairly reflects the trends in the company's capital expenditures?

Yes, I think it does.

FedEx's lobbying efforts argued reduced taxes would allow them to increase capital spending more than they would have otherwise. Instead, they look to have stuck to their trendline - and 2019's estimated is flat.

Draw those numbers on a chart and it doesn't look like the tax cut generated much of a boost: https://marketrealist.imgix.net/uploads/2018/09/Capex-2.png?...

Article from which the chart is drawn: https://articles2.marketrealist.com/2018/09/a-look-at-fedexs...

The NYT in the paragraph you quoted vaguely paints the picture that investment is being cut significantly in favor of massive dividend payments. However, if the reality is that it is merely plateauing as you and the parent comment show, then doesn't that show their wording was misleading?

Yes, FedEx didn't follow up with the massive new boosts they promised (besides the pension fund). However, the NYT should have included figures and stated it how you are in your comment - that growth factor is what has gone down, not the actual level of investment.

I am not disputing what you say about FedEx, I just want NYT to be more careful and precise in its reporting.

>Yes, FedEx didn't follow up with the massive new boosts they promised (besides the pension fund).

They've been building 800,000 square feet of new sort facility at IND for a year and change...

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/01/26/fedex-credits...

https://bgabuilders.com/fedex-indianapolis-ob4-project/

It's huge and runs right along side Interstate 70, you can see it from the other side of the airport just off of U.S. 40.

I can walk to my car, drive about 10 yards out of my work parking lot and see it across the airport. It's very real and almost certainly didn't grow out of the ground on its own accord.

They're also expanding in Greenwood, Indiana.

They're also expanding at MEM.

...

FedEx makes capital expenditures every year. The NYT is not alleging they stopped them. They're alleging they didn't increase them any more than they normally would, despite saying that's why they needed tax reductions.

https://marketrealist.imgix.net/uploads/2018/09/Capex-2.png?... indicates their spending growth has largely just stayed what it was prior to the tax changes.

It makes the point that they didn't even spend what they'd initially projected, let alone increase it like they said they would. They did not follow through with their lobbying promises.

The fact that they instead increased stock buybacks etc. demonstrates a point of detractors of the tax law - that it's proceeds would most likely go back into already-wealthy pockets, not capital investment. It's not unreasonable to point it out here.

You're missing the giant acquisition they made between the $3B & that $5B... https://about.van.fedex.com/newsroom/fedex-acquires-tnt-expr...

Take that out & how does it look?

I don’t follow - that’s not CapEx, and 4.4B EUR on ~$70b in EV does not make the acquisition giant in relative terms