His point is to make a quick buck at the expense of future profits (Apple would need to borrow more or pay taxes on money it brought back into the country) and therefore future investors. This is the same tired Wall Street attitude that's been destroying the US for the last 30+ years. This guy would turn Apple into the next Enron, jacking up share prices while gutting the real value of the company. He would of course be shorting the stock well before the bad news became public.
By the way, Apple isn't undervalued just because other tech companies are over valued!
This is delusional. You simply don't understand finance and comparing engaging in a stock buyback to Enron, which was an outright fraud, is silly. There are a lot of smart people who invest in the market. If Icahn's proposal is as patently stupid as many of you claim it is then the market simply won't reward Apple stock with a higher price in the short run.
Icahn will eventually die and he can't take his shares with him past the grave, greedy ****er Icahn is.
Still keeping it classy. Keep it up.
But you do realise that it is all stock market manuevering and manipulation, of course.
Hold up. A partial owner of a company who wants a say into how that company is run is manipulation? Please, next time your kid runs a lemonade stand feel free to call her a leech if she has any suggestions for improving the enterprise.
No actual value is being created, and the end result after all the sell offs for profit is APPL stock trading right back where it started or lower, and the market's confidence in the stock will have been damaged on the long term.
You have not presented a compelling thesis for why any of that baloney is true. I, however, have posted a primer on stock buybacks that spells out exactly when buybacks are value-generating or value-destroying. No one has brought up a point that actually makes sense financially for how an enlarged buyback would be a value-destructive action in Apple's case.
You of all people should know that this is precisely how "the greatest investor of all time" has made his billions. The guy hasn't created anything or done anything producing actual value his entire life.
Carl Icahn has improved the lives of more people than you will ever hope to. He has gotten fantastically rich in the process but that's all anyone looks at. Think of the thousands of pensions/retirees/retail investors that his involvement in a company has helped via throwing out incompetent management or improving that company. If you're a "fat-cat CEO" or board-member collecting a massive salary for not actually creating value for the real owners of the company (common shareholders) then Carl Icahn is your worst enemy.
Apple as a company produces actual value, real products people around the globe use to produce and create things.
Yes, which they would continue to do whether there was $50 billion or $150b in the bank earning <1% interest.
"Owners" of these companies' are so completely detached from them that they have no regard whatsoever for what actually happens to them or what business they are in, or even if they will actually exist tomorrow. All that matters is the personal ROI, and in most cases these days, it is for the highest ROI in the shortest possible timeframe.
I think it's cute you think the market can be so easily fooled into pushing up the price of the most traded stock in the world temporarily whereas the brilliant minds behind Carl Icahn haters on macrumors see right through all this nonsense and concentrate on true, long-term value.
That analogy made earlier about the TV and the box of money is also ridiculous. Not accurate in the least.
First of all, "Management" would not charge $2250 for the TV, because they wouldn't set the price. You would not even be buying the "TV" from the "store", but through a broker on the open market where you pay a price you thought it was worth buying at that point in time. AND, unless you were there at the initial IPO, there is no locked box with $750 in it, and the "TV" you bought wouldn't even be brand new, but used, probably with many thousands of previous owners. Even then, since it is a free open market, there are people buying the same model TV at the fluctuating asking price every day. People are paying what the "TV" is worth to them at that given moment.
This doesn't negate my analogy at all. When you buy a share of Apple stock for around $100 you are buying the company for around $75 and then $25 in cash earning nothing that Apple isn't using. Period. It's your money, they aren't using it, and you could have used that money for something else that would be more productive.
A stable, consistent buyback scheme like the one they are doing now, with moderately increased dividends over time will be a much better strategy long term for Apple the company, because it will encourage longer term rises in the stock price for the shareholder, while not artificially spiking the stock, which would inevitably have a whiplash effect that could easy do more harm to the stock value over time than good.
And guess who pushed for this buyback scheme? Apple continues to generate more cash than they can use and give back to shareholders. It needs to be enlarged, which is exactly what Carl is arguing for.
The problem is he is very smart, and very good at what he's doing. He does know what he's talking about.
And what he's talking about is making Carl Ichan rich.
Not making Apple successful.
Not necessarily benefitting other shareholders.
Carl Icahn has invested in the common stock of Apple. He only makes money when every other shareholder does.
Please explain how Icahn's proposal helps the living poop out of Apple's shareholders.
Already done, time after time. If you, like Carl Icahn, believe that Apple is undervalued, then buying back stock is value-generating for shareholders.
