Apple announced today that its Board of Directors has approved a two-for-one split of the Company’s common stock and a proportional increase in the number of Apple common shares authorized from 900 million to 1.8 billion. Each shareholder of record at the close of business on February 18, 2005 will receive one additional share for every outstanding share held on the record date, and trading will begin on a split-adjusted basis on February 28, 2005. Apple’s last stock split was also a two-for-one split that took effect on June 21, 2000 for shareholders of record at the close of business on May 19, 2000.
After the news of the split, shares of Apple rose $3.13, or 4 percent, to $81.49 in Friday morning Nasdaq trading.
MacDailyNews Take: For those unfamiliar, basically what this means is that if you have 100 Apple shares at $80 per share at the close of business on February 18th, your stock will “split two-for-one” and you’ll have 200 shares that are worth $40 per share.