“Apple Inc. may already have told investors all it needs to about Steve Jobs’s health problems in its statement yesterday that he was granted a leave of absence, according to three securities law experts,” Chris Dolmetsch and Peter Burrows report for Bloomberg.
MacDailyNews Note: Steve Jobs’ letter, officially released by Apple Inc., dated Monday, January 17, 2011, verbatim:
Team,
At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.
I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.
I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.
Steve
Dolmetsch and Burrows report, “‘They don’t have to say any more than the fact that he’s taking a leave, it’s indefinite, if that’s what it is,’ James Cox, a Duke University law professor, said yesterday. ‘Then they can express lots of generalized optimism which is not going to get them into trouble because that’s the kind of expected puffery for which there’s no actionable claims to speak of.’ … ‘The SEC hasn’t provided any guidance on this,’ said Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit and a former federal prosecutor. ‘The last time this happened they did announce that they were going to investigate the disclosure and then we heard nothing else from them.’ … ‘It’s in a company’s interest as well to limit its disclosure so that it does not create for itself a duty to update,’ said Jacob Frenkel, a former SEC enforcement lawyer and now a partner at Shulman Rogers Gandal Pordy & Ecker in Potomac, Maryland. ‘In this day and age, shareholders want to know everything,’ Frenkel said in a phone interview. ‘As a practical matter, in terms of Mr. Jobs’s personal health condition, they’re entitled to know very little.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Shareholders have a right to know how this affects Steve Jobs’ ability to do his job at Apple Inc. They have been told he is on indefinite medical leave, hopes to return, will retain the title of CEO, and be involved in major strategic decisions. That he “loves Apple so much” is a bonus, however screamingly obvious it may be. Anything more, including details about his medical condition and/or treatments, unless they affect his ability to “be involved in major strategic decisions,” are, and should remain, private, unless Jobs himself chooses to share them.
THIS take from MDN is absolutely spot on…Jobs is a remarkable man by any measure. Whatever your beliefs…you should at the very least wish him well, or do as I’m doing, pray for his health.
he took leave before.. then later told people he had surgery… so I can see all the speculation and everything is going to hit the fan… I just believe this will be initial shock. I still don’t get why this information would be out there since it should be a private matter. All he would have to do is take leave and not tell anyone and no one would know… Whomever leaked this letter should be fired and hit with a fine of some sort.
On the positive side the higher the stocks are means the less small time investors can buy in.. meaning less volatility. Sure big time people with tons of money can sell or buy big.. but when your shares are at $50 and its affordable to the masses it can fluctuate easily from one analyst because the majority who can only afford lower priced stocks will take it as word from the bible and sell immediately if told to do so.
I hope he is doing well and I’m sure he will be doing just fine. He wouldn’t take time off unless necessary.
The last time he took a medical leave, neither he nor his doctors had a precise handle on the prognosis. How can you tell the stockholders something nobody knows for sure? He may be back, he may not, but be assured, he built an executive team with the same obsessive perfectionism as his products.
In the mean time, the stock has been knocked all the way back to where it was a week and a half ago. Another blow-out earnings report coming later today.
I agree with M159, what the media assumes was prevarication last time, was just the normal situation in medical diagnosis. Steve’s condition is rare and difficult to diagnose, so what may be thought of as a hormone imbalance one day, may be considered something else, by another specialist the next day. Medicine is an imperfect science. I come from a family of 5 doctors, and my older brother is the busiest CT transplant surgeon in SoCal and he told me it was “hard to say” what is going on with Steve right now, unless you were intimately involved in his case.