“Billionaire investor Carl Icahn said he increased his stake in Apple Inc. (AAPL) by another $500 million, bringing his total holdings in the iPhone maker to about $3.6 billion as he reiterated calls for a bigger stock buyback,” Beth Jinks reports for Bloomberg. “”
“Icahn released a seven-page open letter to shareholders of Cupertino, California-based Apple yesterday, repeating his recommendation that the company increase its share-repurchase program,” Jinks reports. “Icahn announced the additional shares in a new posting on Twitter Inc., following a series of tweets Jan. 22 stating he purchased $500 million of shares in the past two weeks.”
“Icahn, 77, first disclosed his Apple stake in a tweet on Aug. 13, when the stock was trading at about $468. The shares have since gained 19 percent. Icahn, who became a billionaire by buying stakes in companies and then publicly pushing management and directors for changes to boost the stock, has been pressuring Apple since to return more cash to shareholders,” Jinks reports. “Prior to Icahn’s involvement, Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook announced a plan for a total of $100 billion in dividends and buybacks.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s the thing, most agree that Apple’s stock price is undervalued; significantly so, many believe. Based on P/E ratio (especially compared with other tech companies), Apple shareholders simply have not been getting a fair appraisal by the market for quite some time now. Every share Apple takes off the open market theoretically increases the value of the remaining shares, but if Apple has to sacrifice anything regarding their real plans for the money, assuming they have plans for the money, then they should go tell johnny-come-lately Icahn to go pound sand.