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Carl Icahn Presses for Apple Shareholder Vote on Increased Stock Buyback

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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Activist investor Carl Icahn has filed paperwork to ask Apple shareholders to recommend a $50 billion share repurchase to Apple's board of directors.

The request is what's called a precatory proposal, meaning even if a majority of shares vote in favor, it would not be binding on Apple's management. In an interview with Time, Icahn said he believes CEO Tim Cook and Apple's management team are doing a good job, but he believes the company should be spending more of its capital on its own shares.
For his part, Icahn says he doesn't consider his proposal an indictment of Apple CEO Tim Cook, or the company's management, per se. "Tim Cook is doing a good job with the business," Icahn tells TIME. "I think he's good whether he does what I want or not." But, says Icahn, referring to the company's huge cash stockpile, "Apple is not a bank."

[...]

I'm not against the management of this company. But they've got too much money on their balance sheet."
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Icahn is able to withdraw his proposal before the shareholder's meeting if he no longer wishes to press the issue, either because Apple agrees with him or he believes a potential proxy fight is no longer in his favor. If not, Apple would likely recommend investors vote against the proposal, even though it isn't binding.

Since he first disclosed his position in Apple back in August, Icahn has been vocal about asking the company to increase its buyback at the same time he has dramatically increased his stake in the company.

Apple, for its part, announced a significant increase in its capital return program back in April of 2013, and management pledged to reexamine its share repurchase and dividend programs in the first half of 2014.

Article Link: Carl Icahn Presses for Apple Shareholder Vote on Increased Stock Buyback
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/12/04/carl-icahn-presses-for-apple-shareholder-vote-on-increased-stock-buyback/
S

sammaffei

macrumors member
Nov 16, 2011
64
16
Totally self serving

…making Apple buy back more shares to limit the number of outstanding shares and hopefully artificially increase the value of his investment. When that happens, he will dump and reap the profit.

He knows very well that Apple keeps that much cash on hand to buy companies outright (so they don't have to borrow to do it) and make themselves very hard to takeover.
 
P

Pyrrhic Victory

macrumors regular
Feb 6, 2012
152
0
Apple should be spending it's money on researching new technologies, not just hoarding it for its megamillionaire shareholders. They only had like $40B after the whole time Jobs was there and now Tim Cook the beancounter siphoned off another 70-80B in just two years? And all he's doing is churning out boring and predictable iterations of Jobs' iPhone and iPad? No wonder Apple's market share is plummeting, their CEO couldn't innovate his way out of a closet.
 
Michael Goff

Michael Goff

Suspended
Jul 5, 2012
13,329
7,421
Pyrrhic Victory said:
Apple should be spending it's money on researching new technologies, not just hoarding it for its megamillionaire shareholders. They only had like $40B after the whole time Jobs was there and now Tim Cook the beancounter siphoned off another 70-80B in just two years? And all he's doing is churning out boring and predictable iterations of Jobs' iPhone and iPad? No wonder Apple's market share is plummeting, their CEO couldn't innovate his way out of a closet.
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Their marketshare is plummeting for other reasons, it never stays as the lead in almost any category.
 
F

fredfnord

macrumors regular
Sep 9, 2007
127
19
Ye gods and little fishes...

…I am beginning to DESPISE this man.

He seems to have more or less singlehandedly destroyed a company that I had a fair bit of stock in, a while ago: he pumped up the share price, got out, and the company is now scraping along the bottom and is liable to get bought out for a song. Not really any different from Romney: if he can make a bunch of money by destroying a company and stepping on the faces of the employees and the small investors, he'll do it. (I sometimes think these people prefer it that way, because that way they can also contemplate how much more awesome they are than the people whose livelihoods they destroyed.)
 
X

Xerotech

macrumors 6502
Jul 22, 2011
418
5
All he wants is a quick way to make money. If he were a long term investor he would suggest the company put more money into researching more technologies. Keeping your stock afloat means delivering quality and new products with large margins. Buying back small portions of stocks does absolutely nothing as big banks are the ones who hold a majority stake in Apple anyway.

Apple needs to continue to expand its stake in consumer electronics other than phones, computers, etc. There's little growth room left for the phone market. :)

Every company has an era.
 
firedept

firedept

macrumors 603
Jul 8, 2011
6,277
1,130
Somewhere!
I am not a stock investor but it sure sounds like he just wants to crank up the value for a cash grab. What happens to all the other investors when the stock falls again, maybe even lower than it already is.

Hopefully other shareholders see him for what he is. Am genius or dirt bag. I do not know, but shareholders better.
 
AZREOSpecialist

AZREOSpecialist

Suspended
Mar 15, 2009
2,354
1,278
Huh... buy $2 billion of Apple stock and then push for a buyback program that would raise the stock value. Doesn't seem personally motivated at all... not at all...
 
O

o9ski

macrumors member
Jan 15, 2008
72
71
NYC
I am AAPL shareholder and would like Apple to return some money to me instead of hoarding it. It's my profits too and Carl is right.
 
tbrand7

tbrand7

macrumors 6502
Feb 8, 2013
265
0
New York
I find it funny how this guy has the audacity to think he should have any control in Apples finacial descions. The word "investor" is not a job position my friend. Just because you invest a large sum of your money into a company, does not mean you gain any more control in what the company does or not do.
 
K

kingtj

macrumors 68030
Oct 23, 2003
2,606
749
Brunswick, MD
Yeah ....

I have to admit, his quote is priceless:

"...they've got too much money on their balance sheet."

Really? Yeah, there's really something wrong with a company when it earns too much money! I mean, hey -- I love their products and the way everything's run, but you can't just hang onto the money you earn. That's, you know, wrong - at least as long as *I* could be getting paid a chunk of it instead!

Honestly, I think there's a good argument to be made that it's time for Apple do some more acquisitions. For example, we all know it has trouble with cloud/internet related things pretty regularly. Probably time to buy up a few more companies who do those things well and roll them into the "iCloud". And although Apple supposedly bought a few companies to help improve its maps capabilities? It should have, IMO, gone all out to buy out Waze -- because that's about the only map service I've used that's truly competitive with Google Maps in accuracy and quality.

But just giving back more on stock purchases? Meh.... not really going to make Apple a better company with better products.

Swift said:
Who doesn't despise this load of crap?
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L

lcmazza

macrumors regular
Apr 3, 2012
213
0
o9ski said:
I am AAPL shareholder and would like Apple to return some money to me instead of hoarding it. It's my profits too and Carl is right.
Click to expand...

He is partially right. If Apple has this much money on cash, it is because they have nothing else better to do with it. If shares go down, the they will be able to buy them at the right time. Also there's a great risk of a huge finiancial crisis in the coming years and Apple knows that CASH IS ALWAYS CASH.
 
S

Squeak825

macrumors 6502
Sep 5, 2007
439
307
tbrand7 said:
I find it funny how this guy has the audacity to think he should have any control in Apples finacial descions. The word "investor" is not a job position my friend. Just because you invest a large sum of your money into a company, does not mean you gain any more control in what the company does or not do.
Click to expand...

Umm...he is a shareholder, and that is exactly what it means.
 
AppleInLVX

AppleInLVX

macrumors 65816
Jan 12, 2010
1,238
744
Just look at that smug face. I have nothing at all invested in any of this, but that man pisses me off, and I want to poke him in the eye. I think if you get rich enough, at best you ought to use the wealth in good ways like Bill Gates, or at worst go buy an island and quit dicking around with the system.
 
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