Investment firm BlackRock increases stake in Apple stock, now owns 6.1% of shares
The world's largest asset management firm BlackRock has increased its holdings in Apple, with a regulatory filing revealing its total ownership in the company is now over 322 million shares, worth approximately $38.4 billion.
A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission confirms the investment firm owns 322,683,504 shares in total, which works out to be a 6.1 percent stake in Apple. The figure is up from the same time last year, as in January 2016 BlackRock owned a 5.7 percent stake in the iPhone producer.
The news of BlackRock's increased ownership in Apple has positively affected the markets, with Yahoo Finance noting the Apple stock price has risen by 0.3 percent to $120.11.
As the largest investment firm, BlackRock has considerable holdings in other major tech companies, owning at least five percent of Microsoft, Facebook, and HP. BlackRock also has a seat on the Apple board, with co-founder and current chief operating officer Susan Wagner the second woman to do so after replacing the long-serving Bill Campbell in 2014.
Earlier this week, Apple's stock price reached a 14-month high, while Morgan Stanley rated Apple as "overweight" and set a price target for the company's shares of $148. As part of the rating, Morgan Stanley's estimates for the fiscal 2017 iPhone revenue were reduced by 3 percent due to anticipated "weak demand" ahead of an iPhone "supercycle."
A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission confirms the investment firm owns 322,683,504 shares in total, which works out to be a 6.1 percent stake in Apple. The figure is up from the same time last year, as in January 2016 BlackRock owned a 5.7 percent stake in the iPhone producer.
The news of BlackRock's increased ownership in Apple has positively affected the markets, with Yahoo Finance noting the Apple stock price has risen by 0.3 percent to $120.11.
As the largest investment firm, BlackRock has considerable holdings in other major tech companies, owning at least five percent of Microsoft, Facebook, and HP. BlackRock also has a seat on the Apple board, with co-founder and current chief operating officer Susan Wagner the second woman to do so after replacing the long-serving Bill Campbell in 2014.
Earlier this week, Apple's stock price reached a 14-month high, while Morgan Stanley rated Apple as "overweight" and set a price target for the company's shares of $148. As part of the rating, Morgan Stanley's estimates for the fiscal 2017 iPhone revenue were reduced by 3 percent due to anticipated "weak demand" ahead of an iPhone "supercycle."
Comments
Also interesting to note that Susan Wagner, one of BlackRock's co-founders, is on Apple's board (she joined in 2015).*
*(Oops... I see the article refers to that fact as well!)
EDIT: Here's a fairly recent article about them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/business/dealbook/at-blackrock-shaping-the-shifts-in-power.html?_r=0
BlackRock is an asset management company that has many funds, over a thousand. They have 600+ BlackRock branded mutual funds, 300+ iShares branded ETFs, and 70+ closed end funds.
Their AAPL holdings are most certainly not held in one fund.
Let's take a quick glance at both:
Bank of America (BAC)
BlackRock (BLK)
- Total revenue: $11.2B (Dec 2015)
- Net income: $3.35B
- Number of employees: 13,000
- Net income per employee: $258K
BlackRock employees are generating 3.4x more net income for their company than BofA.In response to the OP: BlackRock did add about 7 million shares to ts AAPL holdings in 2016, but most of the increase in the portion of AAPL shares they owned was due to the number of AAPL shares outstanding decreasing. Apple's been buying back shares so if you just hold the shares you have steady you own more and more of Apple each year. BlackRock would have gone from about 5.7% to about 6.0% in 2016 had they just kept the same number of shares.
BlackRock reported net inflows for 2016 of more than 4% (over $200 billion) of their assets under management for 2015. Their increase in AAPL shares was more than 2%, so it didn't quite keep up with the amount of new money that BlackRock had to manage and invest. On the other hand, as a percentage of the total assets under management that BlackRock had, the total value of their Apple holdings did grow a bit due to the market price of those shares increasing more than the value of their total assets under management.
The question now is, will we see an ownership statement from Berkshire Hathaway? I expect that we will in the next few days.