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Carl Icahn Discloses 'Large Position' in Apple, Believes Company is 'Extremely Undervalued'

This is bad news indeed.

Icahn's interests and Apples interests aren't mutually inclusive. What is best for Icahn is a quick buck. Anytime "activist" shareholders start to steer corporate policy, companies crumble. The bottom line and padding pockets does not necessarily create the best environment for growth and sustainability.

I predict that Icahn will eventually drive Apple down the toilet, should he be interested enough (Dell, anyone?)(Or TWA). Right now he's just manipulating the stock by buying low and demanding that Apple take measures to raise the stock price, thus generating him a nice fat stack of cash. I expect him to pressure Apple to deplete most of it's cash reserves to drive stock price, just long enough for him to cash in big. With each buyback of non voting stock, Icahn will gain more control too. He's exactly the kind of investor you don't want -- the opposite of Buffet, per se. This is the same ******* that wanted to clear Apple's management in 2009. The same ******* that wanted Apple to sell ****** devices at discount retail chains. What he did with TWA was downright ******.

He's going to be the demise of Dell, too.

I have little respect for the guy.
 
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peterdevries said:
He is worth 20 billion. He is a good investor.
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So it's all about the money? In my opinion, this is Not good. luckily he only has 1%. He is only after one thing, money. There is no interest in the product, the company or innovation. He is a parasite that lives off the creativity and hard work of others for his own sake. You doubt that? Ask TWA.
It is not about the product anymore, it's all about profits and share value. It is rather sad that greed has become so acceptable and even desireable in society. We almost admire the Gordon Gecko's of today. And when they mess up, we baile them out.
 
Mitochris said:
So it's all about the money? In my opinion, this is Not good. luckily he only has 1%. He is only after one thing, money. There is no interest in the product, the company or innovation. He is a parasite that lives off the creativity and hard work of others for his own sake. You doubt that? Ask TWA.
It is not about the product anymore, it's all about profits and share value. It is rather sad that greed has become so acceptable and even desireable in society. We almost admire the Gordon Gecko's of today. And when they mess up, we baile them out.
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I'm not disputing any of your claims. I was just making the point that he is an effective investor.
 
PatrickCocoa said:
Buffett is the exactly opposite of Icahn. Buffett is a buy-and-hold who looks for good management, then lets them run the company.

Icahn is two things: 1) a killer of dead and near-dead companies; and 2) a suck-the-life-out-of-healthy-companies guy.


This is the first time in 20 years I'm seriously considering selling my AAPL.
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I think you are overreacting. Icahn is an activist, but that doesn't make him a corporate shill. I think he is right with Dell. As for Apple, perhaps he sees a bargain and wants to make the most of it.
 
genovelle said:
You mean like the Mac Pro they announced last month?
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I don't see it in the shops do you? And we all knew a new Mac Pro was coming sometime this year because Apple said so last year.

I suppose they could pre-announce something else in Sept but it's not likely IMHO.
 
Icahn twitted an information and suddently the stock went up

isn't this called market manipulation and an illegal thing ??? :confused: :eek:
 
If this all goes south, Tim Cook has an excuse to yell "ICAAAAAAAAAAHNN!!!!"

Kirk.gif
 
the8thark said:
Stock price and market manipulation at it's finest?
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Exactly, he's a vulture. In the Dell case, he steps in and runs up costs of the transfer yhat was a "done deal" millions of dollars. He is costing REAL PEOPLE their jobs while he holds the company hostage for 4% more.

But he's obviously not acting alone as most of the money in these deals is from pals and not HIS. He's just the face of a band of stock thuggies and its Apple's turn to get screwed with.

Apple probably wishes somebody else would be the new "belle at the ball" for a while so they can do business. Diverting Tim's time to deal with invented investor revolts is just going to hurt things overall. The problem with being "king of the hill" is that you start to spend too much time fighting off others. Guys like Gates and Ellison enjoy that kind of game.. Steve Jobs pretty obviously hated that game and just wanted to focus on going UP, not who's behind you.
 
Mitochris said:
So it's all about the money? In my opinion, this is Not good. luckily he only has 1%.
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He has nothing even close to 1%. He has around $1.5B invested; AAPL has a market cap of around $450B. There are many other institutional and other investors that have a much larger stake. Icahn would not even be in the top 20 investors.

I'm wary of Icahn, but the enormous size and profitability of AAPL limits his influence compared to smaller companies he's tried to squeeze. He's not the first to suggest share buybacks, which they're in the midst of right now. I've been buying AAPL all the way down. Underwater on some purchases, ahead $100 on others. Still think there's a tremendous upside, though this type of news often leads to nauseating volatility.
 
louiek said:
What's the flaw in his his logic? Not being facetious, I'd love to know, 'cos it seems pretty sound to me.
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Sound? Except for the fact that there's zero evidence and it's not what Carl Icahn does. He campaigns for change in the companies he's invested in (whether that be change in management, dividend policy, buyback policy, blocking/negotiating a sale, etc.).
 
SanJacinto said:
Carl Icahn is not even close to Warren Buffett.
Warren Buffett doesn't destroy healthy businesses and he does not invest in companies to force them to distribute their cash. I love Buffett. All I know about investing I got from Buffett, Graham and Damodaran.

Carl Icahn on the other side is an activist investor and that's really a bad thing. He searches for companies with massive cash reserves. After he bought a great amount of stocks he starts to influence management and forces them to reduce the cash reserves by increasing dividends or by starting stock buybacks. This is not good for Apple.

This are really bad news. The first really bad news regarding Apple since Steve's passing.
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This is thinly sliced baloney. You don't have to like Carl Icahn, because it doesn't matter. Either way his stake is AAPL is not significant. What is significant is his putting a lot of his own resources on the line for a stock where he thinks he can make money. This kind of high profile commitment will help change the narrative for the stock from what it has been for nearly a year, to something more positive. Small investors also benefit, as you can plainly see.

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Risco said:
He is clearly tying to influence stock price in order that he can sell and make a huge profit....
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Making a profit in the stock market. Oh, my.
 
ValSalva said:
Why does Icahn want to prevent Dell from going private? To make money off of them? If Dell has any chance it's probably going private again, at least for a while.

Apple should go private again too. Then it wouldn't have to be subject to Wall Street analyst nonsense about innovation, market share, etc. Apple could just do what they do best and keep making its billions. I know, never going to happen.
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I think it's highly likely that they'll go private... How long before their profits allow them to just write a check for the whole public float of the company? (I know it's not that simple... most of their cash is overseas... but still, the assets are there. Could be the biggest going private transaction of all time.)
 
Wow. Replace Steve Jobs (back in 2009)? I know he was having health issues, but come on!



sw1tcher said:
Is this the same Icahn that wanted new Apple management? Is this the same Icahn that wanted Apple to sell bargain-priced hardware at discount chain stores which would have diluted Apple's image?

Not sure how great this news is.



Hopefully he'll take a hand-off approach this time.
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