Carl Icahn sends letter to Tim Cook, pressures Apple for a buyback

“Activist Investor Carl Icahn again publicized his stake in Apple Inc. [AAPL] and promised more news to come on Thursday,” Ben Eisen reports for MarketWatch.

“Icahn set off the chain of media Thursday with a tweet about a recent letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook,” Eisen reports. “It’s likely the letter (to be released at shareholderssquaretable.org) mentioned at least something about his well-publicized push for a share buyback for Apple holders.”

Eisen reports, “In a follow-up interview with Bloomberg TV Wednesday afternoon, he continued to make the case, saying he’s asking his pen pal for a $150 billion tender offer. ‘On this one point we can have a voice because it’s so absurd not to do the buyback,’ Icahn said, noting that other shareholders have contacted him to support his campaign. Icahn said he’s ‘here to stay’ as an investor, and also praised Cook.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: It’s only absurd to those who lack imagination.

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33 Comments

    1. All tim has to say is; “okay, you agree to hold your shares for 5 years, then we can talk.

      The shareholders mtg will be interesting. I can imagine annoyed shareholders standg up to the guy.

      1. Make it 10 years AND Icahn agrees to buy an *additional* equivalent percentage as Apple buys back** AND hold that for an additional 10 years. THEN and ONLY THEN they should talk.

        ** AAPL is currently at about $476.9 B. A $150 B buyback would be about 31% buyback. Icahn claims to hold about $1 B in AAPL stock (less than a quarter of a percent of the outstanding stock). As part of the deal to even start serious discussion Icahn must buy $310 million MORE in AAPL stock and sign up to keeping that stock for a minimum of 10 years.

    1. Or even better: Go parasitize Google. They deserve some retributional parasitism AND they’re riding on a massive bubble. You could buy up their stock just in time for the bubble to explode and eat your ill gotten gains! We’d enjoy that.

  1. This is an interesting sideshow.

    Icahn made his bones bullying weak companies, grabbing board seats, making quick money. This whole Apple/Cook thing is new territory for him: Apple has a solid management team; owns the high-end market for computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets and so on; has instituted both a significant share buy-back program as well as a dividend plan.

    AAPL is appreciating, competitors, both domestic and foreign, look a little frail right now. Further, Icahn’s steak in the company is pretty small. He has no leverage. I don’t understand his involvement. Maybe he just wanted a safe haven in the event of a down market?

  2. Carl Icahn needs to go away. He’s a 1% bent on getting as much as he can with no regards to employees, customers and even other shareholders. His blatant greed should not be allowed to run over the long term opportunities of Apple. I’m mean really, how old is the guy? How much damn money does he need?

  3. Dear Mr. Icahn (or is that I Can’t). Please put your shares up for sale I am sure Mr. Cook would be happy to buy them back from you. To put the company on the brink of bankruptcy just to fill your ego is the most asinine thing any one of Apple stake holders can think of, and by stake holders I mean CUSTOMERS the most important stake holders to any company.

  4. I will send a letter to Tim Cook as well, pressure him to give Pages 5.0 the lost features back. No more mail merge, no more shortcuts for paragraph styles, no more customizable toolbar, no more two pages view, an much much more. Not more features, but much less.

    After four years auf waiting this is the worst update I’ve ever seen in my life from Apple. I have no idea what they had in mind, but this one does not push pressure an MS Office, even for free it is absolutely not worth my zero Euros.

    At least I can continue using Pages 09, it remains on the disc and can easily be found with Spotlight. See the reviews in the AppStore, mac fans all over the world are deeply shocked.

  5. If he doesn’t want the shares, then dump them at FMV. Why should he be privy to insider information about a buyback that will temporarily cause stock prices to rise, then he sells half with the second half short and ready for the fall-off!??

    Scam artist.

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