One of the analysts asked why the company needs so much cash and suggested that the company should boost return on equity by, for example, issuing dividends or making some other investment with the cash. I thought Ming's answer was pretty lame. He gave the same excuse that many of the projects they bid on require the company to make cash outlays before getting paid. He started giving examples, and the biggest hypothetical example he could come up with might require an upfront cash outlay of about $200 million. You could tell the analyst wasn't impressed by the answer because his comment after Ming's answer was something to the effect of "$600 million in cash is a lot of money."

Any thoughts?