“When Apple reported its monster Q1 results on Tuesday, the company revealed that its cash, short-term investments, and long-term investments totaled $97.5 billion,” Adam Levine-Weinberg writes for Seeking Alpha.
“This disclosure triggered another round of speculation about what the company should do with all that excess cash (Apple carries no debt),” Levine-Weinberg writes. “Management was forced to deal with various iterations of the question: ‘When and how might you return cash to shareholders?’ on the earnings conference call. For the most part, analysts have predicted a relatively modest dividend of 2-3%, to be initiated sometime this year.”
Levine-Weinberg writes, “While a modest dividend or share buyback are possible, Apple executives may have other ideas. The following are three fairly radical ideas for what Apple could do with excess cash.”
• Initiate a Massive Quarterly Dividend
• Become completely carbon neutral
• Start a Private Equity Fund
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
Give an iPad to every student in the US to boost our education system – will still have plenty of money left over.
Better yet, seek out all of the best performing students in high schools and give them scholarships the university of their choice.
Yes, by all means write off the rest, only take the “best”…
Why give away what you’ve demonstrated you can sell?
Apple products are sold all over the world. Why spend the money in the US? It’s a lost cause. Spend it where the taxes don’t rip the company off.
Uhm, the cash are the profits that belong to the shareholders. We should ask them if they’d like you offering iPads to every student in the US.
I’m sorry but your comment is radically conservative for this site!
•Give some back to the employees who made it possible.
I believe that’s called a paycheck.
Which they already receive.
You obviously don’t work work for Apple.
Retail worker, I see. You do realize that you and your coworkers account for less than a quarter of the money apple generates, right?
PS- enjoy that $500 discount on Macs that only Apple employees can now get!
Even corporate employees don’t get paid as much as their counterparts at other companies. I’m not saying give it all away, but why are executives the only ones who should get a stock option or bonus? The former by the way costs the company $0. I rather have that than a $500 discount on a machine once every three years.
Because you’re just selling what smarter people actually thought up.
Oh, and if you actually wanted stock options, you could have said so.
Instead you’re crying about wanting a slice of the cash reserves. Far less convincing.
@Meh,
“I rather have that than a $500 discount on a machine once every three years.”
Then become an executive.
What’s stopping you?
I don’t actually sell anything Captain Condescending. You do realize that there is a small army of people that actually have to make these places run right? We aren’t all just college kids on the sales floor.
Meh, I would hang on to your job if I were you. They’re disappearing fast. Maybe you could start an Apple union and become a shop steward.
Meh, are you on your break, or just screwing off at work?
they should get some nice extra cash for the job they have done
Stop the speculation and let the management team make the decisions.
They’ve been doing a pretty damned good job without help from “journalists”
@XS,
Speculation doesn’t interfere with the decisions of the management team. There’s nothing wrong with “This is what I’d like to see…” or “This is what I think Apple should do…” or “This is what I think Apple will do…”.
Bailout California. Buy Iceland. Buy Dell and give it back to the share holders. My two cents.
Hoard it so they can survive any
Economic storm? yes
That’s a pussy move. Apple has ballz.
Take one percent of it and buy off all the lawyers litigating against them.
Or they can buy Sony.
1) same culture: Both pay great attention to design. In fact, it is a known fact that Sony had great influence on Jobs.
2) same business model: Both sell good products at high margin.
3) good game base: Apple will have new portable games imported to iPod and iPhones. Sony can use Siri in their Playstation games. Think about using voice control in Call for Duty games.
4) a good media base: Apple will then have a large media base. If they do not like it, they can sell the media business to Disney.
Oh, RADICAL ideas — okay, GIVE THE MONEY TO ME.
Huh, that was easy. I should write tech articles!
+9.57e10 LOL
This is not news. This is an opinion piece. Posting countless stories about what apple should do with its money or who it should buy (Kodak, Sony, Nintendo, adobe). It is so tired.
Macdailynews-
Where Mac news comes first, unless there is no news, then we’ll petal hit-whore crap that is not news because people like to comment on worthless and irrelevant minutia.
Q: ” but why are executives the only ones who should get a stock option or bonus?”
A: they are. How? By “[giving] some back to the employees who made it possible.” You know, the people that actually envision, create and market the stuff you shill.
Build a worldwide gigabit network.
You just might have hit the right button there.
Buy Microsoft, immediately sandbox Windows into a ‘compatability’ area, get power users on Mac everyone else on iPads, reduce IT head count by 70%, set up a fund for all those IT support drones to get them some meaningful employment (sweeping the streets, polishing shoes or something), imprison everyone responsible for Windows for crimes against humanity.
In that order.
1
Here’s my 2 cents, not necessarily in order of importance:
1. Buy Sony and get their music and movie business.
2. Buy T-mobile to fulfill Job’s wish (maybe AT&T would object, though).
3. Develop and build a flying iCar.
4. Build an AppleLand theme park
Oh, and one more thing:
5. Build an intercity High Speed rail network (and I mean high speed)
Apparently you have never been to California. They are slated to drop ~$100 billion on a marginally high speed rail that connects San Francisco to LA.
Oh, you are probably right, No 5 would would probably be too expensive even for Apple. So would a trip to Mars or the stars, but by the end of this year, if they keep exponentially increasing their money pile, it might be worth 200B and then they could afford to do all of 1-4.
Number 4 all ready exists, it’s called the Apple Store.
This is my plan to spend 100 billions if I were Apple CEO:
1) I would dump Foxconn and any other if they don’t improve their ways with workers!!!
2) I would invest in building a brand new state-of-the-art manufacturing plant.
3) I would make sure the working conditions are as great as my products.
4) I would make sure employees are happy working there. I would set the example.
5) Yeah… why not paying dividend too? Why not sharing profits? If I could afford, I would.
This is the solution. Apple is building great products. The rest shoud be as innovative.
If they do it, we’ll all like it and buy more from them. The other corporations will follow.
The world gets better.
And none of those items put Apple at a competitive advantage. They actually put Apple at a competitive disadvantage.
FoxConn *is* state of the art manufacturing.
People always like to bring up the suicide rate, well FoxConn is about 7 out of 100,000 while America (in general) is closer to 21 out of 100,000.
There are a number of state-of-the-art manufacturing plants available. If you buy the right one, you wouldn’t even have to change the name; you could just call it Solyndra. I hear that’s recently become available. Are you planning on risking your own money or just sticking it to the taxpayers if it fails?
Patranus, are you telling me that working conditions at Foxconn are that great?
why is it that apple should be solely responsible for the financial health and welfare of tens of thousands of employees of another company whose services are contracted by dozens of consumer electronics companies as well?
Think REALLY outside the box. For about $108 billion, Apple could buy NBC/Universal, CBS, and Pixar/Disney/ABC
Content problem solved.
Buying the stock of content holders would be a very interesting way to (ahem) *encourage* more enlightenment in terms of content delivery. The only real question would be to be able to execute the buys slowly & quietly, to prevent a run-up of the stock’s price.
-hh
Tivo. A technology that enhances the Apple TV line with a UI/UX that’s at least compatible with Apple’s. Also comes with a fat portfolio of patents that will kneecap Google’s knock-off attempts.
Excellent suggestion. Fleeting rumors have swirled in the past. You have inside information…?
I’d settle for just the patents. Google no longer amuses me.
Start a Theme Park!!!
Are you on your break Meh, or just screwing off at work?
I’m not allowed to discuss my schedule with you.
You’re probably not allowed to be posting on MDN bitching about Apple either, but you didn’t let that stop you.
I say spend that money and get me my Freaking Lasers On Sharks done and over with. I’m getting frustrated with MiniMe trying to figure it out.
I would like to see Apple build a satellite wifi network that would ultimately stretch world wide and own everything including the network. Add to that either their own developed content and/or whatever makes sense from a licensing point of view.
They would be able to control voice, data, content, network, hardware and software etc. It would further enhance Apple products and the company and users benefit.
1. Buy Congress, fire their asses, put Ives & Cook in charge.
2. Buy In & Out Burger & make it free.
Please please please buy Adobe…
I’m leaning toward the “massive quarterly dividend” idea.