I'd just like to know why Google doesn't have to do anything to make its stock rise to $1200 a share and yet Apple has to bribe everyone on Wall Street just to get to $600 a share. Larry Page is making Tim Cook look like an damn idiot. The way I figure, Apple will stay underpriced forever. No one can put any shareholder value into Apple because of the way the company is run strictly for profits. Google is practically giving everything away for free and that in turn is making the company wealthier by the day in Wall Street's standards.
Apple needs to take that huge chunk of reserve cash and challenge Google's search engine business. Apple's mobile hardware business has been completely strangled by Android and now there are no revenue gains to be made because Android occupies 80% market share. Global consumers will no longer buy Apple products because Android products are far less expensive for consumers to buy. Apple needs to steal at least some of Google's search and ad click business to grab more revenue. If this current trend continues Google will easily pass Apple in market cap considering how fast Google's share price is rising. Apple is becoming an embarrassment to Apple shareholders as Google continues to biatch-slap Apple all over the place in value. Apple is just letting its cash hoard go to waste because right now it has zero value when it comes to shareholders.
To hell with Icahn. He's just interested in making quick money for himself. I want Apple to expand it's business into non-hardware ventures and not let Wall Street gobble up it's money with buybacks. I'm fine with getting increased dividends because it might also interest mutual fund managers to invest in Apple. Apple stock is totally stagnant and there has to be some practical way to get it moving up again. If Google and Amazon can do it, so should Apple be able to find a way.
Google sells ads. and supposedly controls only 3% of global expenditure in an industry that is rapidly moving more and more towards online ads. Apple sells hardware and competes only in the premium end of that market (recent iPhone and iPad launches push them even more firmly into that niche). It already owns much of that market today.
The market rewards future earnings and has 'guessed' that Google will grow earnings significantly faster.
I fail to see what benefit Apple would get from this buyback scheme.
I like that Apple has a large war chest of security, am not interested in Apple throwing this away just to get a bigger valuation on my AAPL shares. I bought AAPL because I love Apple long-term, not to make money short-term.
Is there even a cast-iron guarantee that AAPL shares would go up in value? I wouldn't be surprised if the market priced in any EPS share increase and the share price hardly moved, (or moved up then back down again).
And why exactly should AAPL try to increase shareholder value anyway? How does that benefit Apple?
Tim Cook should just ignore this self-serving money-grabbing f-wit.
I'd just like to know why Google doesn't have to do anything to make its stock rise to $1200 a share and yet Apple has to bribe everyone on Wall Street just to get to $600 a share. Larry Page is making Tim Cook look like an damn idiot. The way I figure, Apple will stay underpriced forever. No one can put any shareholder value into Apple because of the way the company is run strictly for profits. Google is practically giving everything away for free and that in turn is making the company wealthier by the day in Wall Street's standards.
Why do you care so much about Wall Street standards? You just said that they were the ones keeping Apple's stock undervalued. All companies are run strictly for profits unless they are run poorly. Google is making plenty of money but not as much as Apple. Apple has brand value that Google dreams about and Google needs Apple (for mobile device ad revenue) much more than Apple needs Google (just dropped Google maps for their own and search for Bing). The only way for Apple to needlessly attain instant marketshare is to cut the price and quality of their product line which would permanently damage their brand value.
Stock price has nothing to do with long term success. Even Carl Icahn knows that. So should you.
I'm not sure there's anything more transparent than Icahn telling Apple to use it's entire cash reserve to buy shares back (which will drive share price up) in order to maximize his own profitability when he turns around and dumps his position.
You need to remember that the SHAREHOLDERS own Apple. Apple does NOT OWN Apple. ... At close to zero % interest rates you are literally losing billions of dollars a month when the cash is just sitting in a money market fund returning 1%
No I don't need to remember anything. I care about Apple the company and would rather they still exist in 100 years time than have them give me even double what my hundreds of shares are worth. Shareholders come, shareholders go. If you don't want to own AAPL shares, sell them, nobody asked you to buy them or promised you anything in return. Apple owes short-term (less than say 10 years) shareholders nothing.
I'd just like to know why Google doesn't have to do anything to make its stock rise to $1200 a share and yet Apple has to bribe everyone on Wall Street just to get to $600 a share. Larry Page is making Tim Cook look like an damn idiot. The way I figure, Apple will stay underpriced forever. No one can put any shareholder value into Apple because of the way the company is run strictly for profits. Google is practically giving everything away for free and that in turn is making the company wealthier by the day in Wall Street's standards.
Apple needs to take that huge chunk of reserve cash and challenge Google's search engine business. Apple's mobile hardware business has been completely strangled by Android and now there are no revenue gains to be made because Android occupies 80% market share. Global consumers will no longer buy Apple products because Android products are far less expensive for consumers to buy. Apple needs to steal at least some of Google's search and ad click business to grab more revenue. If this current trend continues Google will easily pass Apple in market cap considering how fast Google's share price is rising. Apple is becoming an embarrassment to Apple shareholders as Google continues to biatch-slap Apple all over the place in value. Apple is just letting its cash hoard go to waste because right now it has zero value when it comes to shareholders.
To hell with Icahn. He's just interested in making quick money for himself. I want Apple to expand it's business into non-hardware ventures and not let Wall Street gobble up it's money with buybacks. I'm fine with getting increased dividends because it might also interest mutual fund managers to invest in Apple. Apple stock is totally stagnant and there has to be some practical way to get it moving up again. If Google and Amazon can do it, so should Apple be able to find a way.
What you are seeing here is a game of chicken to see who blinks first. Apple is being punished by wall street for having a lot of cash. They are trying everything they can to get at it. For over a year they have floated unfounded speculation in the press that Cook may not be the best CEO for Apple. Their goal was to get a wall street player in that seat that could write checks on Apple's bank account. Make big purchases, buy back shares, throw some money at some lobbyist, etc.. When that didn't work they took it out on the stock price. So other investors would start to question Apple's leadership.
The reality is now that Apple is performing too well and the operations of the company are not affected by the share price. Other than employee compensation packages, Apple really does not need its stock to be of any value. With cash in the bank they don't need a decent share price to leverage purchases, establish a good credit rating or even ward off a hostile take overs. That scares wall street because it makes them outside of their field of influence. The other problem for investors is nobody alone as a sizable enough stake to have any influence on the board.
What Icahn is doing is trying to rally support and form a consortium among other investors to force Apple's hand into executing a buyback. Basically expending their entire nest egg on keeping the shareholder's happy. Apple is quietly calling their bluff. Apple could do a buy back at anytime (for any price). They could just as easily wait until the price is $300 or even $250 a share. Wall Street can only suppress the share price for so long before A) Large institutions dump it to move on to richer pastures driving the price down and affecting everybody left holding it or Other investors start to see it as a real good value and invest in droves and run the price up which makes apple even stronger with their cash on hand and self-owned equity. In either case Ichann and his ilk loses and Apple roles on.
In a perfect world, in Wall street's eyes, a corporation has just enough cash on hand to operate and maybe survive a few bad quarters. Make some small strategic purchases and maintain a decent credit rating. Everything else they do with their stock. And by being very dependent on their stock price, companies are very sensitive to Wall street's whims and influence. This opens them up to be manipulated by analysts trying to swing the price. Apple doesn't play that game and that is why they are being punished.
This is bad for Apple, Icahn is only interested in lining his pockets, the fact he suggest Apple go into debt if needed to to buy back more stock more quickly proves that. He does not care if Apple is making the right investments with its money or whether the company is doing all the right thing to grow the company, he is only interesting in making sure the stock value goes up. As we seen there is a much larger group who have been trying to drive the stock value down as fast as possible since they make money on the down side. Icahn is attempting to drive the stock up quickly so to drive out the people who are shorting the stock to drive its value down.
Icahn has screwed every company he go involved with, he did not make it better for investors he made it better for him.
This is the same story when Google was $550 and Apple was $700 about a year ago. Wall street loves to rotate in and out of stocks and steal money from Main Street.
Google is just hot right now and Apple is just warming up. I would not be surprised that within 12 months Google will be $800 and Apple at $700.
The key concern about Google a year ago was how the move to mobile would affect its profitability, as mobile ads. sell for less than desktop ads. Since that time, and with it's recent earnings, Google has shown that its increase in quantity of ads. has been more than enough to offset the reduction in price. Hence the reason that Google's value has increased.
The concern about Apple is the increased competition from Samsung et al., its ability to grow in developing markets (read China) and its recent inability to create new product segments as it has in the past.
If you wish to believe in conspiracy theories that's up to you.
What a pointless waste of $150 billion in cash ...
This, I cannot agree with. This money -- which, after all, belongs to shareholders -- can certainly be put to good use by the shareholders at least as well as Apple doing so on their behalf. If a particular shareholder does not believe that to be the case, they have the option to not sell to Apple.
Granted, a massive buyback at a price of $400 - $450 would have been even better, but if we truly believe that the stock is substantially undervalued even at the current $530, then it is a good use of money. In fact, I'd rather that Apple had done buybacks instead of initiating dividends in the first place. It is more tax-friendly to investors, sends a positive signal to the market, does not have the de facto permanency of a dividend, and can be kept as treasury stock to reissue later to mitigate the employee stock option dilution effect.
All this assumes that there is enough cash available for reinvestment (capex, working capital, R&D, acquisitions).
This is bad for Apple, Icahn is only interested in lining his pockets, the fact he suggest Apple go into debt if needed to to buy back more stock more quickly proves that. He does not care if Apple is making the right investments with its money or whether the company is doing all the right thing to grow the company, he is only interesting in making sure the stock value goes up. As we seen there is a much larger group who have been trying to drive the stock value down as fast as possible since they make money on the down side. Icahn is attempting to drive the stock up quickly so to drive out the people who are shorting the stock to drive its value down.
Icahn has screwed every company he go involved with, he did not make it better for investors he made it better for him.
Netflix went up 450% since Ichan bought.
Icahn's purchase had nothing necessarily to do with it, except perhaps for a short-term bump around the time of the purchase announcement. He just got lucky, as anyone who bought the company last year did.
Legally the shareholders OWN Apple. PERIOD. I dont' care what your personal stance is about the company it is a FACT. Apple went public and now the shareholders own the company. Buying company shares is BUYING OWNERSHIP. This is not rainbowland with Unicorns and care bears.
Totally agreed but as an Apple shareholder I, like most, represent a very tiny minority. If you were to ask the majority of shareholders (the millions of people like me with under 1000 shares not the few people like Ichann with millions) what they want most would agree they want the price to go up. Maybe a small (but vocal) minority would want a buy back. Many (I can't say most because I don't know the actual numbers) shareholders don't see the company's management as being the reason for the stock price being undervalued. We see the problem as coming from other shareholders and wall street manipulators.
Carl Icahn is NOT an investor - he is a corporate raider. His role in the demise of TWA has already been mentioned. His game plan: 1) buy enough stock in a company that has cash on hand to be elected to the Board of Directors; 2) control the Board by bringing on 'associates;' 3) break up the company and sell the component parts for more cash; 4) leave the empty shell behind; 5) claim success for stockholders; i.e., himself and friends.
btw - 'investors' contribute nothing to the company whose stock they buy - unless they are buying treasure shares. The money goes to the seller - not the company.
Carl Icahn's behavior is a principal reason the 'poison pill' was invented.
Why would a company use 90% of the cash they have to buy stock? That's STUPID. Apple has better things to do with that money.
They have money to invest and they have money to buy land, buildings, equipment, pay for research, have around just in case need to fend off a competitor.
I don't doubt his strategy, but investment bankers sole goal is to make money. Regardless of the company, they are going to milk any profitable firm (that took decades of hard work and dedication by all stakeholders to build) until they literally kill the golden cow. Then they will move on to the next one. They can't help themselves.
I have had Apple computers since 1978 (Apple II s/n 6293) and an investor since they first went public. Apple's sole goal is to make great products (and services) for its customers (period). Steve knew that the money/success would follow if they delivered on that promise (and it has, beyond his and anyone's wildest dreams).
These two philosophies are diametrically opposed. They cannot co-exist. As one reader pointed out - there will be lawsuits...
I, for one, am quite pleased with Apple's buyback and dividend policy and will strongly vote against Mr. Icahn's plans. Going forward "content" (books, apps, music, video) is the key to Apple's present value model. Apple has always been great at forging strategic partnerships to break monopolies/"status quo business models" such as now exist in the TV broadcast industry, and worldwide telecommunications. They need a bankroll as leverage to do this, and it would be foolish to limit Apple's strategic business options by taking that away from them.
Apple has the ability to be the first company valued in the trillions of dollars, if can maintain its core business strategy and make some bold strategic decisions/investments. Now that's cool!
Don't forget its the SHAREHOLDERS that own Apple. Not Tim Cook. Not the Board of Directors. I'd love to see this proposal being voted on during the next annual meeting. Let the SHAREHOLDERS decide.
Shareholders elect board members to make many decisions. Let's keep it that way.
Comments
Ermmm. If you want the definition of stagnant look at MSFT. Apple is the antithesis of stagnant.
https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=1&chfdeh=0&chdet=1382644800000&chddm=979846&chls=IntervalBasedLine&cmpto=NASDAQ:MSFT&cmptdms=0&q=NASDAQ:AAPL&ntsp=0&ei=3ThpUtj3FOSeiQK9EA
I'd just like to know why Google doesn't have to do anything to make its stock rise to $1200 a share and yet Apple has to bribe everyone on Wall Street just to get to $600 a share. Larry Page is making Tim Cook look like an damn idiot. The way I figure, Apple will stay underpriced forever. No one can put any shareholder value into Apple because of the way the company is run strictly for profits. Google is practically giving everything away for free and that in turn is making the company wealthier by the day in Wall Street's standards.
Apple needs to take that huge chunk of reserve cash and challenge Google's search engine business. Apple's mobile hardware business has been completely strangled by Android and now there are no revenue gains to be made because Android occupies 80% market share. Global consumers will no longer buy Apple products because Android products are far less expensive for consumers to buy. Apple needs to steal at least some of Google's search and ad click business to grab more revenue. If this current trend continues Google will easily pass Apple in market cap considering how fast Google's share price is rising. Apple is becoming an embarrassment to Apple shareholders as Google continues to biatch-slap Apple all over the place in value. Apple is just letting its cash hoard go to waste because right now it has zero value when it comes to shareholders.
To hell with Icahn. He's just interested in making quick money for himself. I want Apple to expand it's business into non-hardware ventures and not let Wall Street gobble up it's money with buybacks. I'm fine with getting increased dividends because it might also interest mutual fund managers to invest in Apple. Apple stock is totally stagnant and there has to be some practical way to get it moving up again. If Google and Amazon can do it, so should Apple be able to find a way.
Google sells ads. and supposedly controls only 3% of global expenditure in an industry that is rapidly moving more and more towards online ads. Apple sells hardware and competes only in the premium end of that market (recent iPhone and iPad launches push them even more firmly into that niche). It already owns much of that market today.
The market rewards future earnings and has 'guessed' that Google will grow earnings significantly faster.
I fail to see what benefit Apple would get from this buyback scheme.
I like that Apple has a large war chest of security, am not interested in Apple throwing this away just to get a bigger valuation on my AAPL shares. I bought AAPL because I love Apple long-term, not to make money short-term.
Is there even a cast-iron guarantee that AAPL shares would go up in value? I wouldn't be surprised if the market priced in any EPS share increase and the share price hardly moved, (or moved up then back down again).
And why exactly should AAPL try to increase shareholder value anyway? How does that benefit Apple?
Tim Cook should just ignore this self-serving money-grabbing f-wit.
I'd just like to know why Google doesn't have to do anything to make its stock rise to $1200 a share and yet Apple has to bribe everyone on Wall Street just to get to $600 a share. Larry Page is making Tim Cook look like an damn idiot. The way I figure, Apple will stay underpriced forever. No one can put any shareholder value into Apple because of the way the company is run strictly for profits. Google is practically giving everything away for free and that in turn is making the company wealthier by the day in Wall Street's standards.
Why do you care so much about Wall Street standards? You just said that they were the ones keeping Apple's stock undervalued. All companies are run strictly for profits unless they are run poorly. Google is making plenty of money but not as much as Apple. Apple has brand value that Google dreams about and Google needs Apple (for mobile device ad revenue) much more than Apple needs Google (just dropped Google maps for their own and search for Bing). The only way for Apple to needlessly attain instant marketshare is to cut the price and quality of their product line which would permanently damage their brand value.
Stock price has nothing to do with long term success. Even Carl Icahn knows that. So should you.
Apple should just buy Vodafone and some other profitable big companies and reduce their hoard that way and tell Eyebrows to go ....
Carl needs to STFU already.
I'm not sure there's anything more transparent than Icahn telling Apple to use it's entire cash reserve to buy shares back (which will drive share price up) in order to maximize his own profitability when he turns around and dumps his position.
I fucking hate this guy.
You need to remember that the SHAREHOLDERS own Apple. Apple does NOT OWN Apple. ... At close to zero % interest rates you are literally losing billions of dollars a month when the cash is just sitting in a money market fund returning 1%
No I don't need to remember anything. I care about Apple the company and would rather they still exist in 100 years time than have them give me even double what my hundreds of shares are worth. Shareholders come, shareholders go. If you don't want to own AAPL shares, sell them, nobody asked you to buy them or promised you anything in return. Apple owes short-term (less than say 10 years) shareholders nothing.
I'd just like to know why Google doesn't have to do anything to make its stock rise to $1200 a share and yet Apple has to bribe everyone on Wall Street just to get to $600 a share. Larry Page is making Tim Cook look like an damn idiot. The way I figure, Apple will stay underpriced forever. No one can put any shareholder value into Apple because of the way the company is run strictly for profits. Google is practically giving everything away for free and that in turn is making the company wealthier by the day in Wall Street's standards.
Apple needs to take that huge chunk of reserve cash and challenge Google's search engine business. Apple's mobile hardware business has been completely strangled by Android and now there are no revenue gains to be made because Android occupies 80% market share. Global consumers will no longer buy Apple products because Android products are far less expensive for consumers to buy. Apple needs to steal at least some of Google's search and ad click business to grab more revenue. If this current trend continues Google will easily pass Apple in market cap considering how fast Google's share price is rising. Apple is becoming an embarrassment to Apple shareholders as Google continues to biatch-slap Apple all over the place in value. Apple is just letting its cash hoard go to waste because right now it has zero value when it comes to shareholders.
To hell with Icahn. He's just interested in making quick money for himself. I want Apple to expand it's business into non-hardware ventures and not let Wall Street gobble up it's money with buybacks. I'm fine with getting increased dividends because it might also interest mutual fund managers to invest in Apple. Apple stock is totally stagnant and there has to be some practical way to get it moving up again. If Google and Amazon can do it, so should Apple be able to find a way.
What you are seeing here is a game of chicken to see who blinks first. Apple is being punished by wall street for having a lot of cash. They are trying everything they can to get at it. For over a year they have floated unfounded speculation in the press that Cook may not be the best CEO for Apple. Their goal was to get a wall street player in that seat that could write checks on Apple's bank account. Make big purchases, buy back shares, throw some money at some lobbyist, etc.. When that didn't work they took it out on the stock price. So other investors would start to question Apple's leadership.
The reality is now that Apple is performing too well and the operations of the company are not affected by the share price. Other than employee compensation packages, Apple really does not need its stock to be of any value. With cash in the bank they don't need a decent share price to leverage purchases, establish a good credit rating or even ward off a hostile take overs. That scares wall street because it makes them outside of their field of influence. The other problem for investors is nobody alone as a sizable enough stake to have any influence on the board.
What Icahn is doing is trying to rally support and form a consortium among other investors to force Apple's hand into executing a buyback. Basically expending their entire nest egg on keeping the shareholder's happy. Apple is quietly calling their bluff. Apple could do a buy back at anytime (for any price). They could just as easily wait until the price is $300 or even $250 a share. Wall Street can only suppress the share price for so long before A) Large institutions dump it to move on to richer pastures driving the price down and affecting everybody left holding it or
Other investors start to see it as a real good value and invest in droves and run the price up which makes apple even stronger with their cash on hand and self-owned equity. In either case Ichann and his ilk loses and Apple roles on.
In a perfect world, in Wall street's eyes, a corporation has just enough cash on hand to operate and maybe survive a few bad quarters. Make some small strategic purchases and maintain a decent credit rating. Everything else they do with their stock. And by being very dependent on their stock price, companies are very sensitive to Wall street's whims and influence. This opens them up to be manipulated by analysts trying to swing the price. Apple doesn't play that game and that is why they are being punished.
This is bad for Apple, Icahn is only interested in lining his pockets, the fact he suggest Apple go into debt if needed to to buy back more stock more quickly proves that. He does not care if Apple is making the right investments with its money or whether the company is doing all the right thing to grow the company, he is only interesting in making sure the stock value goes up. As we seen there is a much larger group who have been trying to drive the stock value down as fast as possible since they make money on the down side. Icahn is attempting to drive the stock up quickly so to drive out the people who are shorting the stock to drive its value down.
Icahn has screwed every company he go involved with, he did not make it better for investors he made it better for him.
This is the same story when Google was $550 and Apple was $700 about a year ago. Wall street loves to rotate in and out of stocks and steal money from Main Street.
Google is just hot right now and Apple is just warming up. I would not be surprised that within 12 months Google will be $800 and Apple at $700.
The key concern about Google a year ago was how the move to mobile would affect its profitability, as mobile ads. sell for less than desktop ads. Since that time, and with it's recent earnings, Google has shown that its increase in quantity of ads. has been more than enough to offset the reduction in price. Hence the reason that Google's value has increased.
The concern about Apple is the increased competition from Samsung et al., its ability to grow in developing markets (read China) and its recent inability to create new product segments as it has in the past.
If you wish to believe in conspiracy theories that's up to you.
What a pointless waste of $150 billion in cash ...
This, I cannot agree with. This money -- which, after all, belongs to shareholders -- can certainly be put to good use by the shareholders at least as well as Apple doing so on their behalf. If a particular shareholder does not believe that to be the case, they have the option to not sell to Apple.
Granted, a massive buyback at a price of $400 - $450 would have been even better, but if we truly believe that the stock is substantially undervalued even at the current $530, then it is a good use of money. In fact, I'd rather that Apple had done buybacks instead of initiating dividends in the first place. It is more tax-friendly to investors, sends a positive signal to the market, does not have the de facto permanency of a dividend, and can be kept as treasury stock to reissue later to mitigate the employee stock option dilution effect.
All this assumes that there is enough cash available for reinvestment (capex, working capital, R&D, acquisitions).
This is bad for Apple, Icahn is only interested in lining his pockets, the fact he suggest Apple go into debt if needed to to buy back more stock more quickly proves that. He does not care if Apple is making the right investments with its money or whether the company is doing all the right thing to grow the company, he is only interesting in making sure the stock value goes up. As we seen there is a much larger group who have been trying to drive the stock value down as fast as possible since they make money on the down side. Icahn is attempting to drive the stock up quickly so to drive out the people who are shorting the stock to drive its value down.
Icahn has screwed every company he go involved with, he did not make it better for investors he made it better for him.
Netflix went up 450% since Ichan bought.
Icahn's purchase had nothing necessarily to do with it, except perhaps for a short-term bump around the time of the purchase announcement. He just got lucky, as anyone who bought the company last year did.
Legally the shareholders OWN Apple. PERIOD. I dont' care what your personal stance is about the company it is a FACT. Apple went public and now the shareholders own the company. Buying company shares is BUYING OWNERSHIP. This is not rainbowland with Unicorns and care bears.
Totally agreed but as an Apple shareholder I, like most, represent a very tiny minority. If you were to ask the majority of shareholders (the millions of people like me with under 1000 shares not the few people like Ichann with millions) what they want most would agree they want the price to go up. Maybe a small (but vocal) minority would want a buy back. Many (I can't say most because I don't know the actual numbers) shareholders don't see the company's management as being the reason for the stock price being undervalued. We see the problem as coming from other shareholders and wall street manipulators.
btw - 'investors' contribute nothing to the company whose stock they buy - unless they are buying treasure shares. The money goes to the seller - not the company.
Carl Icahn's behavior is a principal reason the 'poison pill' was invented.
He hasn't been around here very long.
They have money to invest and they have money to buy land, buildings, equipment, pay for research, have around just in case need to fend off a competitor.
I don't doubt his strategy, but investment bankers sole goal is to make money. Regardless of the company, they are going to milk any profitable firm (that took decades of hard work and dedication by all stakeholders to build) until they literally kill the golden cow. Then they will move on to the next one. They can't help themselves.
I have had Apple computers since 1978 (Apple II s/n 6293) and an investor since they first went public. Apple's sole goal is to make great products (and services) for its customers (period). Steve knew that the money/success would follow if they delivered on that promise (and it has, beyond his and anyone's wildest dreams).
These two philosophies are diametrically opposed. They cannot co-exist. As one reader pointed out - there will be lawsuits...
I, for one, am quite pleased with Apple's buyback and dividend policy and will strongly vote against Mr. Icahn's plans. Going forward "content" (books, apps, music, video) is the key to Apple's present value model. Apple has always been great at forging strategic partnerships to break monopolies/"status quo business models" such as now exist in the TV broadcast industry, and worldwide telecommunications. They need a bankroll as leverage to do this, and it would be foolish to limit Apple's strategic business options by taking that away from them.
Apple has the ability to be the first company valued in the trillions of dollars, if can maintain its core business strategy and make some bold strategic decisions/investments. Now that's cool!
The implication is that they’ll take a loan to buy it back.
Shareholders elect board members to make many decisions. Let's keep it that way.
I bought Apple when it was $65. So their success can be attributed to me.