“Investor Carl Icahn has sent an open letter to Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, with lots of nice things to say about the iPhone 6 and the Apple Watch. But also this: He’d like shareholders to get paid, please, and faster,” Pat Regnier reports for MONEY. “Icahn controls 53 million shares of Apple, worth $5.3 billion, which gives him about a 0.9% ownership in the company. In his letter, Icahn lays out his reasons that Apple should repurchase its own shares.”
“Apple has a lot of cash. Or, technically, cash plus other short-and long-term investments. The point is that this is money not currently tied up in Apple’s business, but sitting in a portfolio,” Regnier reports. “The Icahn argument, essentially, is that no one needs Apple’s expertise as a de facto fund manager. As MONEY wrote back in June, add up Apple’s $164 billion portfolio and it’s bigger than any U.S. bond mutual fund beside the giant PIMCO Total Return.”
“Icahn’s less than 1% stake might not seem like much, but Icahn is deft at using his position to rally other investors to his side,” Regnier reports. “He’s public about what he wants for a very good reason — when he comes into a stock and starts talking about ways the company could enrich shareholders, other investors follow. That alone can help boost the share price, as well as building a constituency for the changes he’s demanding.”
Read more and see the video in the full article here.
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