NYU Stern professor J.P. Eggers examines the potential impact of billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn’s call for Apple to buy back shares and what it could mean for the company going forward. He speaks on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg Surveillance.”
[Steve Jobs would have handled an activist investor like car Icahn] probably very poorly, actually. Steve definitely wasn’t a fan of being told what to do by anyone, certainly an outsider… an insider might [have been] able to push back to some extent, but I think he would have stormed off an tried to ignore Icahn as best he could.
Even if Jobs had wanted to ignore Icahn, and storm off, the reality is that Icahn has enough power at this point through ownership… the firm would not be able to ignore him completely. – J.P. Eggers
MacDailyNews Take: Icahn has less than one quarter of 1% (0.22%) of Apple. Whatever “power” he has, as far as ownership, is of the very low wattage variety.
Cook wil have to at leat some some serious conversations. What will come out of that, we’ll have to see… I really depends how much Cook has a clear plan in his mind for the cash he’s sitting on and doesn’t want to give it away versus he’s kind of uncertain, in which case he’s going to be more willing to give that cash back. – J.P. Eggers
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Do the math and the reality is clear: Icahn owns less than one quarter of 1% of Apple. Even if talking heads, pundits, and analysts don’t grasp this fact, Tim Cook certainly does.
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