Apple Offers 'Proxy Access', Making it Easier for Shareholders to Nominate Board of Directors

[Reds622]

Apple didn't even provide a dividend until Tim Cook took over. Tim Cook also took a meeting with Carl Ican, perhaps the biggest institutional investor of them all, whose main objective is to line his own pockets as quickly as possible, not the long term health of the company.

It's naive to say that Apple has not gotten more cozy with Wall Street, and their expectations, since Jobs died, because they undoubtedly have. What Cook failed to realize, I think, is that once you open that door, there is no going back. Apple would have been better off ignoring the demands of the market, and letting investors decide whether it would be prudent to invest based on the results of the company. Surely not much would have changed in that regard, since the Market has continued to hold Apple to a different standard even though Cook has given them at least some concessions as to their demands. Now Apple seems to have a strategy that must appease the market, rather than allowing the market to make money off of be spectacular performances Apple has each quarter. Now it seems, no matter what, it will never be good enough, and the institutional investors will demand and a bigger and bigger say, all while looking out for their own best interests. I think it was a mistake to crack that door open at all, even if only slightly. In that regard Tim Cook is nothing like Steve Jobs, who let the products speak for themselves and if you didn't like it, then you could take a hike.

 

[riverfreak]

There is a certain irony in your post because you complain about the software complexity of old Apple devices--where they were building products from the ground up--but are fine with the software bugs in modern products which are essentially just polished versions of the old software.

Anyways the New Macbook has one of the worst feeling keyboards ever. The iPhone still comes with 16GB base space which is pitiful given the 4K camera. The Apple Watch was a failure (like every other smartwatch). iCloud is trash compared to Google Drive. It's pretty obvious that going forward Apple won't be the innovative company.

Subjective post is subjective. I love the keyboard on the new MacBook. Best laptop keyboard ever. Going over to my 11" and 13" airs make them seem like toys. It's pretty obvious your post is completely baseless, and your conclusion on innovation unfounded.

 

[NazgulRR]

((5.575B*0.03)/20)*$108.61=$908,251,125

Right, so you and 19 other buddies can nominate the board in 3 years for a $1B each today. Although it would take a quite some time to acquire the necessary amount of shares based on the trading volume.

 

[Mactendo]

Some of the worst consumer OSes I've ever used (a list which includes Win ME and Vista). Crashes, hangs, panics, it was a rough time for us Apple users back then.

You still complain about bugs in original software but defend bugs in the latest releases which should be (and were, before Yosemite and iOS 8) polished and work well. Illogical.

 

[ptb42]

Maybe if all macrumors members who are shareholders band together, we can nominate one of our own!

According to the article, it's a maximum of 20 shareholders that together hold at least 3% of Apple shares, for 3 years.

Per http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics

There are 5.58 billion shares outstanding. 3% is 167.4 million shares. At today's closing price of $108.03, that's a little over $18 billion. So each of the 20 members would have to hold an average of about $900 million in Apple, each.

Sorry, I don't think it's going to happen.

 

[johnnyturbouk]

Maybe if all macrumors members who are shareholders band together, we can nominate one of our own! Such a macrumors director will be instructed to:
- bring back the quad core mac mini
- bring back a 4" iphone model
- add one more port to the retina macbook
- add a file system to the ipad pro
- release the powerbook g5

Agreed, and can we add desktop gpus to the top tier iMacs.

 

[driceman]

You still complain about bugs in original software but defend bugs in the latest releases which should be (and were, before Yosemite and iOS 8) polished and work well. Illogical.

Yet he points out, quite clearly, that he feels the bugs now are less frustrating than the bugs from back then were. Sounded to me like his point was that they're not perfect now, but that they've improved since Jobs took over.

Personally I suspect this bugginess he refers to stemmed from them trying to multitask and make OS X compatible with both PowerPC and Intel architecture so they could make the transition smoothly. It worked out for them in the long run, as did a lot of things Jobs did when he got back to Apple, despite being something of a short-term loss. This is a prime example of how Jobs changed as a businessman during his NeXT/Pixar startup years. In the 80s, he was determined to convince the world that whichever product he was launching (the first Macintosh, the NeXT Cube) were flawless, perfect, irreplaceable and inarguably the best. That's nice and all, but he learned the hard way that the tech industry moves too fast for technology to truly "work like an appliance." It doesn't matter how great you make one individual product, it'll be outdated in five years- and much sooner if you put 128k of RAM in a computer.

Instead, the Apple he built from 1997 onward did a total 180 on this mentality. That Apple (the one still with us today, I think) tends to release a good product (the first iMac, the first iPod, the first MacBooks, the first iPhone, the first iPad, the first Apple Watch), then make iterative improvements to it until it's a great product (the Retina Macs, the iPod Touch and Nano, the iPhone 6s line, the iPad Air 2, as examples). Mac OS X (yes, the modern, El Capitan flavor) is one of Apple's crowning achievements in my opinion and probably the best asset Jobs got out of NeXT, but there's no doubt that in order to implement it properly they needed to make some short-term compromises- like making it compatible with both PowerPC and Intel processors, which I suspect was a giant pain in @$$. Short term, they were left with an OS with new features that was a bit buggy- long term, they got OS X, which runs lots of great exclusive software and even runs Windows better than most Windows computers do (either through a VM or by helping you install it with BootCamp).

This model also correlates with how people buy things. You have early adopters who are currently reading this on an iPad Pro or the new MacBook, you have the general consumer base who hear whether to buy things or not from the early adopters, and then you have grandma and grandpa who only upgrade what they have if you drag them kicking and screaming.

On the topic of investors choosing a board member, I have mixed feelings. In a sense it gives people who want Apple to be successful an opportunity to have a say in its future, which isn't necessarily bad. But there's also a point where the customers and fans (like Mac Rumors readers, for example) don't really know what they're talking about, including myself. I wouldn't presume to say I know what Apple should do in 2016 better than Tim Cook does, but I have to admit Mac Rumors' choice of associating Apple with McDonald's in this article doesn't instill a ton of confidence in me.

 

[mr.bee]

According to the article, it's a maximum of 20 shareholders that together hold at least 3% of Apple shares, for 3 years.

Per http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics

There are 5.58 billion shares outstanding. 3% is 167.4 million shares. At today's closing price of $108.03, that's a little over $18 billion. So each of the 20 members would have to hold an average of about $900 million in Apple, each.

Sorry, I don't think it's going to happen.

So then why opening the door? It WILL happen.

 

[ptb42]

So then why opening the door? It WILL happen.

As the article said, a shareholder proposal garnered 39% approval at the last shareholder's meeting. This is the way for Apple to get out in front of it, and offer it on THEIR terms. But, this is a really high hurdle to clear. Even Carl Icahn controls just a bit less than 1%.

The only shareholders that even approach 3% are institutions:

https://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=AAPL+Major+Holders

Only 3 institutions exceed 3% (The mutual fund giant Vanguard is nearly 6%). There are 7 others that hold 1%-3%.

It's possible, but very unlikely, that an individual investor holds a substantial position in "street name" through a holding company like State Street (#2). But, the holding company is more likely to represent hundreds of thousands, or even millions of individual investors.

 

[sudo1996]

Maybe if all macrumors members who are shareholders band together, we can nominate one of our own! Such a macrumors director will be instructed to:
- bring back the quad core mac mini
- bring back a 4" iphone model
- add one more port to the retina macbook
- add a file system to the ipad pro
- release the powerbook g5

Hahaha, perfect. The list could go on forever. Well, the second one is actually happening already. You know, we also got support for third-party SSD drivers... maybe someone at MR already has power.

I'm going to add that I want an Apple keyboard that has separate volume, brightness, etc. buttons like it used to instead of being like a laptop keyboard with all the function keys double-mapped. And an iMac without laptop parts. And– ok I'll stop.

 

[the8thark]

Apple Offers 'Proxy Access', Making it Easier for Shareholders to Nominate Board of Directors

I think you mean shareholder.

 

[JMcRitchie]

"Maybe if all macrumors members who are shareholders band together, we can nominate one of our own!"

Although that could be very interesting... especially getting macrumors members to agree on anything, it would be impossible under the board's proxy access provisions. The bylaws limit the number in groups making nominations to 20 and the group must have owned 3% of the stock for 3 years. Therefore, each average member of such a group needs to hold a little less than 10 million shares. How many macrumor members hold even a measly million shares?

Even if we could nominate someone to the board, we would only be able to nominate 1 person. The new bylaw provides that shareholders can nominate up to 20% of the board, rounding down to the nearest whole number. With an 8 member board, that means one. Boards act by making and voting on motions. It takes a second to make a motion and begin a discussion, so anyone elected through this process could end up just talking to themselves.

There's still hope though. The board enacted their bylaw to try to convince shareholders that proxy access is fully accomplished... hoping shareholders won't vote for a shareholder proposal in the next proxy calling for proxy access at the same threshold of 3% held for 3 years, but which does not limit a nominating group to 20 members. Additionally, the proposal is for 25% of the board, so that would be 2 of the current 8 board members.

I say keep dreaming. Imagine if macrumor members did hold did hold close to $20B in Apple stock. Imagine if we could actually agree on a couple of candidates and a platform. If that all came together it would be close to a miracle and it would have to be around some incredible ideas. Very unlikely... but why not be open to possibilities? I'm voting for the shareholder proposal. Let's move from proxy access lite to something more full bodied that doesn't rule out input from regular shareholders.

 

[navaira]

Although that could be very interesting... especially getting macrumors members to agree on anything

LOL!!!

I am toying with the idea of buying one share when iPhone 7 is announced and, as always, the stock price plummets, so that will be my first step.

 

[Keane16]

You still complain about bugs in original software but defend bugs in the latest releases which should be (and were, before Yosemite and iOS 8) polished and work well. Illogical.

Sorry been away over the holidays. This was not my point at all.

I wasn't trying to complain about them, merely pointing out that there were many issues back then too. And there are issues now.

What's illogical is thinking software regression doesn't exist. Things are complex, old stuff will stop working with updates. That's software development.

 

[Mactendo]

What's illogical is thinking software regression doesn't exist. Things are complex, old stuff will stop working with updates. That's software development.

How iOS 8/9 and El Capitan are the "old stuff"? One of the key point of updates is exactly fixing bugs, not adding new ones.

 

[Keane16]

How iOS 8/9 and El Capitan are the "old stuff"? One of the key point of updates is exactly fixing bugs, not adding new ones.

Because a new version was released? Are you really asking that?

Software is complex. Regressions happen. They have always happened and will happen going forward. Whether it's a x.1 or even a x.x.1 release, past stuff that was fine can and will break.

On a side note, and this isn't an excuse - more a reason - Apple is in the process of switching to Swift for some key parts of OS X and iOS. I imagine that's one of the reasons we are seeing niggly things. It's not an excuse though and Apple should be trying to eliminate these niggles as much as possible, hopefully they get on top of it.

 

[Mactendo]

Because a new version was released? Are you really asking that?

Software is complex. Regressions happen. They have always happened and will happen going forward. Whether it's a x.1 or even a x.x.1 release, past stuff that was fine can and will break.

On a side note, and this isn't an excuse - more a reason - Apple is in the process of switching to Swift for some key parts of OS X and iOS. I imagine that's one of the reasons we are seeing niggly things. It's not an excuse though and Apple should be trying to eliminate these niggles as much as possible, hopefully they get on top of it.

New version should fix bugs and be better not worse. And El Capitan is buggy as hell, probably more than anything since 10.4. Look at the ratings at the App Store. OS X, XCode. You are trying to turn things inside out and justify bad job Apple is doing in the last 3 years.

 

[Keane16]

New version should fix bugs and be better not worse.

That's the aim.

But now your confusing what I said. I said regressions happen. I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying and what software regression is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_regression

This isn't just an Apple thing, Microsoft, Google the all the other big companies have this issue too. Even smaller software that I use, like Kodi, suffers from this problem. They fix one bug and sometimes it introduces another.

And El Capitan is buggy as hell, probably more than anything since 10.4.

For me it is better than Mavericks.

A lot of reviews agreed:

http://9to5mac.com/2015/09/29/os-x-el-capitan-review-roundup/

You are trying to turn things inside out and justify bad job Apple is doing in the last 3 years.

You aren't reading what I'm writing:

"Apple is in the process of switching to Swift for some key parts of OS X and iOS. I imagine that's one of the reasons we are seeing niggly things. It's not an excuse though and Apple should be trying to eliminate these niggles as much as possible, hopefully they get on top of it."

I specifically said Apple need to do a better job. How is that justifying it?

 

[navaira]

The trouble with those review(er)s is that:
1) a lot of them fall for the press release and don't bother actually checking much by themselves
2) they fire up Safari, Notes, Finder and go "yes! rock stable!"
3) very few of them have particular setups such as Universal Audio soundcards, multiple accounts in Mail or Outlook/Office problems that people here lost hair about

I have found four very particular errors in Spotify in the last weeks because I've decided to make it my one player app for everything, get two Premium accounts for me and my fiance and copy tracks to my phone. Oh boy. It's not Apple Music level buggy as I manage to copy MOST stuff correctly, but I found, for instance, that they match songs (although their matching quality is on par with Google Play Music, i.e. 99.95% correct). An average reviewer will remark the background is dark on the desktop app, that streaming works correctly, that they can't find Prince on it and that the Premium plan costs $9.99 per month. I'm now corresponding with Spotify customer service and they seem as baffled as AM's customer service. But very few reviewers are going to go through 200 apps on their system with sole goal of checking if they all work with El Capitan and what happens if you spend a good hour with each of them. Real life usage is not related to reviews in any way, shape or form.