“Proxy advisory firm Egan-Jones advised Apple Inc shareholders on Friday to reject activist investor Carl Icahn’s demand that the iPhone maker expand its stock buyback program, a proposal that will be put to a vote this month,” Edwin Chan reports for Reuters.
“‘The board and management team have demonstrated a strong commitment to returning capital to shareholders over the past two years,’ the firm, the smallest of the three major proxy advisory outfits, said in a report obtained by Reuters on Friday,” Chan reports.
Read more in the full article here.
Done – rejected!!!
Seconded!
We say :
Fuck you carl!
It was item #10 on the voter proxy list and I shot Carl’s ass down with a resounding “AGAINST”. I don’t want to see another share buyback as long as I continue to hold Apple stock. Any money Apple intends to use needs to go towards crippling Google’s search engine and ad business.
Tim Cook better find another a way to get revenge on Android because the courts ain’t going to help. It pisses me off to see Google flying high and untouched while Apple struggles to gather any momentum at all. When I think of all the other businesses Apple could have grabbed for $60 billion instead of buybacks it sends chills down my spine. Apple is barely performing as well as any other stock despite those buybacks and dividends. Insane.
Mr Icahn:
I am an investor in and customer of Apple and have been for a very long time. In both roles I have an interest that Apple be managed FOR THE LONG TERM BENEFIT of Apple, it’s customers and owners.
What you propose is a typical Wall Street shakedown that is not in the long term interest of the company, it’s owner/investors or customers. I have been using Apple products since before the Macintosh and have been a shareholder since 2001- where were you all that time?
Although I have my issues with the current management and direction of Apple, I have far more confidence in Mr Cook than some cash and dash scheme to “unlock shareholder value” that your people have cooked up. The shareholder value is not in the cash pile- it is in the intellectual property and goodwill of Apple. Money is a tool that can be used for the advancement of the company to the future benefit of the shareholders- not milk to be skimmed off by fly-by-night “investors”.
Steve Jobs- the founder of Apple- repeatedly said that it was his job to make shareholders rich by increasing the value of the stock and I wholeheartedly agree. I think the payment of dividends, the assumption of debt and the repurchase of stock is a massive waste of funds and opportunity for Apple, but that boat has sailed.
Tim Cook wants to grow Apple and you want to strip it for cash and leave it indebted- a common tactic on Wall Street that has done great harm to many companies and the American economy. You may have more shares than I, but I will be here long after you have either died or moved on to another target.
My shares say not only no- but hell, no!
Begone, stock troll.
Apple buybacks 14billion of its share, Carl buys 3billion, didn’t move the needles. Buy more Carl, the more the merrier for small investors, thank you.
Carl Icahn ( and David Einhorn) is the best thing that has happened to Apple shareholders in 3 years. Look at what he has accomplished.
1. He has prevented the shares from going completely into the toilet.
2. He has with awoken management and Apple’s parasitic Board letting them know they should be accountable to shareholders and that Apple is not just their private fiefdom and piggy bank.
3. Has made them aware that Apple needs someone who
understands Finance that it is wasteful and a disserve to
everyone to allow all Apple’s accumulated capital lay idle earning next to nothing. There many ways to usefully and profitably use this capital and Icahn is showing them at least one way to do it.
4 Look at the money he has already saved the Apple shareholders. Apple borrowed $17B at 2.1% and bought back shares that pay a 2.5% dividend. This saves a reoccurring cash outflow that Apple will benefit from year after year. To date about 90 million shares have been bought back and at a $12.20
dividend that is over $1.1 Billion per year every year going forward (well over $1.00/share EPS).
Hopefully, Tim Cook now has a better idea of how to allocate resources and maybe he will also realize that spending a paltry 2% of sales on R&D is not nearly enough to compete with the Samsungs , Googles, Lenovos and Microsofts of the world who spend well over 10% of sales on R&D. Then maybe we can actually get some new products and new reoccurring income streams and get Apple growing again.
I voted all my shares for Icahn. Thanks Carl.
Carl Icahn ( and David Einhorn) is the best thing that has happened to Apple shareholders in 3 years. Look at what he has accomplished.
1. He has prevented the shares from going completely into the toilet.
2. He has awoken management and Apple’s parasitic Board letting them know they should be accountable to shareholders and that Apple is not just their private fiefdom and piggy bank.
3. Has made them aware that Apple needs someone who
understands Finance that it is wasteful and a disserve to
everyone to allow all Apple’s accumulated capital lay idle earning next to nothing. There many ways to usefully and profitably use this capital and Icahn is showing them at least one way to do it.
4 Look at the money he has already saved the Apple shareholders. Apple borrowed $17B at 2.1% and bought back shares that pay a 2.5% dividend. This saves a reoccurring cash outflow that Apple will benefit from year after year. To date about 90 million shares have been bought back and at a $12.20
dividend that is over $1.1 Billion per year every year going forward (well over $1.00/share EPS).
Hopefully, Tim Cook now has a better idea of how to allocate resources and maybe he will also realize that spending a paltry 2% of sales on R&D is not nearly enough to compete with the Samsungs , Googles, Lenovos and Microsofts of the world who spend well over 10% of sales on R&D. Then maybe we can actually get some new products and new reoccurring income streams and get Apple growing again.
I voted all my shares for Icahn. Thanks Carl.
Steve Jobs did not suffer fools and neither does Apple… 10% spent on R&D is throwing crap at the wall and seeing if it sticks – Apple gets way more bang for its R&D buck – plus it provides R&D for SAMESUNG, GAGGLE and MICROSTUFFED
Icahn is trying to pump up the value of AAPL at the same time he is asking apple to make the share buybacks… WTF? Is he just trying to pump and dump?
A: Yes. Opportunistic, meddling, manipulative, parasite. Doesn’t give a rat’s about Apple the company. Never will