That greedy man again, who probably bought a lot of shares at $700 a piece and wants to make sure he gets his money back.. Simpson is right. Why would a company of the size of Apple has to listen and shape their agenda to please this greedy opportunist old man?
William Lazonick: Here we have all these companies obsessed, basically with keeping their stock prices up, and saying the best thing that they can do with their money is spend billions of dollars on stock. And my view of that is, any company that says that they have nothing to better do with their money, the CEO should be fired.
Carl, though not in Apple as long as myself, has politely purchased over $4 Billion of Apple stock. His investment has brought the stock back from the high $300s to $510.
WHO is clueless?
That might've been the range AAPL has traded since Carl Icahn started investing, but to say that his investment brought AAPL from the high $300s to where it closed today is just ludicrous.
So what would stockholders liked changed about the way Apple is doing business? Personally I would rather have the dividend boosted to 5%, which would provide a longer-term incentive than a single buyback.
Right now though, I am getting prepared to write more calls to offload my stock. I just have too much in Apple at this point, and not enough confidence in where they are planning to go.
We"ll have to agree to disagree. Buying back that much stock is a cheap parlour trick to artificially boost the price in the short term. Once the market corrects and guys like Carl have sold off all their shares then the price goes into free fall. Plus your taking 50B off the table that could be used for long term growth.
It's clear that all your interested in is making a quick buck and not the health or longevity of Apple.
Agreed. Waste of Apples money and good only for short term investors. If anything increase the dividend which rewards long term investors.
He is a greedy man with the only intention of getting the money he invested out in a split of a second. The baby needs immediate gratification!!!
He doesn't understand Apple. Steve Jobs would have never given him even the time of the day.
C'mon Tim. You know better than this. Don't fall into the trap.
Icahn believes he is The Wolf of Wall Street. When he gets the looks, charm, talent and the girls Leonardo has, he might be able to open his mouth.
Meanwhile Carl, just shut the F up and leave Apple alone. They know what they are doing. I doubt you know how use a rotary phone. You are history even with your billions you don't impress us that we know how Apple is run and what they are doing.
That might've been the range AAPL has traded since Carl Icahn started investing, but to say that his investment brought AAPL from the high $300s to where it closed today is just ludicrous.
Agreed. His buying gave Apple a short bump just like his buy back plan would. He supposedly bought another 500 million when the stock went down to $505 yet shortly thereafter it sank to below $500. His investment made no material difference. I bought more at $504.
All three you get by making the best products. And Apple does that. Without stock.
Stock ? growth.
Rather, AAPL is a long-term held stock. You buy, sit on it, and then cash in after a decade of successes.
Ludicrous nonsense.
And some of us are clueless as to the role of stock in a company. That’s why the forum’s great; together we make a complete set of understanding.
Be Ponzi.
I have to agree. Stock buy backs are cheap parlor tricks to artificially inflate a stocks price and therefore a perceived company's value. Stocks now-a-days are not a good indicator of growth of any kind. Just look at any days stock trading and the major swings in stock prices. They reflect nothing of value anymore. The fact that Apple continues to beat the street with revenue and can pile a bunch of cash is the real indicator that they are in no way going away. A monkey can run any large corporation for a short time and cause it to look like it is doing well but the real talent is doing it over a long period of time. Stock buy backs are the monkeys choice.
The current Board fails to recognize that decision-makers with huge amounts of options or restricted stock units (RSUs) are incentivized to enhance the value of those equities through stock buybacks, instead of by allocating resources to innovation. Its like fishing with dynamite. Learn from history.
Between 1986 and 1996, dividends totaled $457 million while stock buybacks totaled $1,761 million, nearly four times as much. While dividends rewarded shareholders for holding stock, repurchases rewarded shareholders for selling the stock. The purpose of stock buybacks was to boost the company%u2019s stock price. Who were the prime beneficiaries? They were the company%u2019s top executives, such as John Sculley and Michael Spindler, with their stock-based pay, running Apple into the ground.
Today, incumbent management risks being too deeply in bed with value extractors. Apple is in danger of seeing productive employees as a profit-reducing expense, rather than as value-creating assets. One exception was instituting a new retention mechanisms, %u201CBlue Sky,%u201D which allows engineers to work on their own projects on company time. But instead of essentially ceasing the award of stock options to such initiatives (fearing a soaring stock price will lead too many employees to get too rich to retain), Apple needs to design incentives to reward internal entrepreneurs.
Here%u2019s the thrust of my argument. We need directors who can address the big money pile %u2013 not with short-term buyback strategies that facilitate extraction of value but with long-term strategies that create value. Investing $150B in Treasuries or money markets is not efficient use of our money. The returns of Google Ventures, for example, are far above the industry%u2019s mean. There is no reason why Apple couldn%u2019t also put our money to good use though an Apple Ventures type of vehicle or through a revamped and enhanced Blue Sky program.
See my post, Proxy Access is Needed at Apple http://corpgov.net/2014/01/proxy-access-is-needed-at-apple/ Please vote for proxy access. Also don't be fooled by Apple's rebuttal. Apple says my proposal would allow 25 investors with $50,000 in shares to place a nominee on the proxy. Read my proposal. It requires 25 investors with $5 billion in shares. There's a difference.
Apple is doing a buyback . Over a long term which will keep the stock steady. More aggressive buyback Will only benefits that short term investor trust Apple Tim Cook an apple team know what they're doing!!
Go Carl - you and I FULLY believe in Cook and Apple - just not their use of the cash. We say invest it in Apple.
Dim-wits are saying you are disloyal or out for a quick short billion. Contrary o' stupid ones - we are fully into Apple and its investment in Apple - WAKE UP DON'T BE STUPID
You are not "disloyal" per that dim-wit Cal pers speaker today (how much have they lost for California retirees?????? ZILLIONS - THEY ARE STUPID) ........if you are suggesting to Cook to invest in Apple - while he is doing great things with product and future growth - there are 2 parts to business - that part and Carl's focus
You seem to have a good argument about Carl, except the wreckage he has wrought on companies he had invested heavily in tells me his subsequent pressure on such companies is usually bad for them and good for Carl.
To do a bigger stock buy back, Apple needs to go into debt to finance it because it does not really have access to the 150 billion dollars in cash every one keeps talking about.
Every one keeps talking about how much money Apple has but they are leaving out the most important point.
Most of the money is not in the US. To bring it back will incur huge losses because of taxes.
What happens when the economy turns ugly and Apple is in debt with no quick access to cash within the USA?
I thought a major part of the reason for the cash hoard is to avoid re-patriating cash and losing it to taxes.
Correct me if I am wrong.
If not, then how is it in the best interest of the shareholders to bring it back now and lose such a massive piece of it to the government?
Also, If you're going to make statements about what AAPL should or should not do with its money, make sure you post how many shares you own so the rest of us can determine exactly the type of knowledgeable (or not) player you are.
I own 250 shares and I still don't fully understand the ramifications of whats going on, but if Ichan can show 26% returns, then those of you who show less should shut up now.
I don't care to see CalPERS or anybody yielding under 20% open their mouth.
Comments
Simpson is right. Why would a company of the size of Apple has to listen and shape their agenda to please this greedy opportunist old man?
Stock buybacks are a gimmick:
You are CLUELESS.
(…)
Carl, though not in Apple as long as myself, has politely purchased over $4 Billion of Apple stock. His investment has brought the stock back from the high $300s to $510.
WHO is clueless?
That might've been the range AAPL has traded since Carl Icahn started investing, but to say that his investment brought AAPL from the high $300s to where it closed today is just ludicrous.
Then sell.
Agreed. Waste of Apples money and good only for short term investors. If anything increase the dividend which rewards long term investors.
He is a greedy man with the only intention of getting the money he invested out in a split of a second. The baby needs immediate gratification!!!
He doesn't understand Apple. Steve Jobs would have never given him even the time of the day.
C'mon Tim. You know better than this. Don't fall into the trap.
Icahn believes he is The Wolf of Wall Street. When he gets the looks, charm, talent and the girls Leonardo has, he might be able to open his mouth.
Meanwhile Carl, just shut the F up and leave Apple alone. They know what they are doing. I doubt you know how use a rotary phone. You are history even with your billions you don't impress us that we know how Apple is run and what they are doing.
Agreed. His buying gave Apple a short bump just like his buy back plan would. He supposedly bought another 500 million when the stock went down to $505 yet shortly thereafter it sank to below $500. His investment made no material difference. I bought more at $504.
All three you get by making the best products. And Apple does that. Without stock.
Stock ? growth.
Rather, AAPL is a long-term held stock. You buy, sit on it, and then cash in after a decade of successes.
Ludicrous nonsense.
And some of us are clueless as to the role of stock in a company. That’s why the forum’s great; together we make a complete set of understanding.
Be Ponzi.
I have to agree. Stock buy backs are cheap parlor tricks to artificially inflate a stocks price and therefore a perceived company's value. Stocks now-a-days are not a good indicator of growth of any kind. Just look at any days stock trading and the major swings in stock prices. They reflect nothing of value anymore. The fact that Apple continues to beat the street with revenue and can pile a bunch of cash is the real indicator that they are in no way going away. A monkey can run any large corporation for a short time and cause it to look like it is doing well but the real talent is doing it over a long period of time. Stock buy backs are the monkeys choice.
Calpers only owns $1.6B in shares while Ichan owns $4B.
Calpers 10 year return is only 7%
Ichan has been returning over20%
And how long have each held their respective AAPL shares? You do realize they each have their own, completely different, agendas, yes?
Icahn got in for the short-term quick buck and CalPERS are in it for the long-haul.
I've owned AAPL since 1997; who's position do you think I stand behind?
That’s why the forum’s great; together we make a complete set of understanding.
... or a complete set of misunderstanding!!
Between 1986 and 1996, dividends totaled $457 million while stock buybacks totaled $1,761 million, nearly four times as much. While dividends rewarded shareholders for holding stock, repurchases rewarded shareholders for selling the stock. The purpose of stock buybacks was to boost the company%u2019s stock price. Who were the prime beneficiaries? They were the company%u2019s top executives, such as John Sculley and Michael Spindler, with their stock-based pay, running Apple into the ground.
Today, incumbent management risks being too deeply in bed with value extractors. Apple is in danger of seeing productive employees as a profit-reducing expense, rather than as value-creating assets. One exception was instituting a new retention mechanisms, %u201CBlue Sky,%u201D which allows engineers to work on their own projects on company time. But instead of essentially ceasing the award of stock options to such initiatives (fearing a soaring stock price will lead too many employees to get too rich to retain), Apple needs to design incentives to reward internal entrepreneurs.
Here%u2019s the thrust of my argument. We need directors who can address the big money pile %u2013 not with short-term buyback strategies that facilitate extraction of value but with long-term strategies that create value. Investing $150B in Treasuries or money markets is not efficient use of our money. The returns of Google Ventures, for example, are far above the industry%u2019s mean. There is no reason why Apple couldn%u2019t also put our money to good use though an Apple Ventures type of vehicle or through a revamped and enhanced Blue Sky program.
See my post, Proxy Access is Needed at Apple http://corpgov.net/2014/01/proxy-access-is-needed-at-apple/ Please vote for proxy access. Also don't be fooled by Apple's rebuttal. Apple says my proposal would allow 25 investors with $50,000 in shares to place a nominee on the proxy. Read my proposal. It requires 25 investors with $5 billion in shares. There's a difference.
... or a complete set of misunderstanding!!
AppleInsider
“We’ll disagree to agree to disagree, but we’ll probably get there eventually, maybe.”
I'm a small investor in it for long term.
You seem to have a good argument about Carl, except the wreckage he has wrought on companies he had invested heavily in tells me his subsequent pressure on such companies is usually bad for them and good for Carl.
Every one keeps talking about how much money Apple has but they are leaving out the most important point.
Most of the money is not in the US. To bring it back will incur huge losses because of taxes.
What happens when the economy turns ugly and Apple is in debt with no quick access to cash within the USA?
Correct me if I am wrong.
If not, then how is it in the best interest of the shareholders to bring it back now and lose such a massive piece of it to the government?
Also, If you're going to make statements about what AAPL should or should not do with its money, make sure you post how many shares you own so the rest of us can determine exactly the type of knowledgeable (or not) player you are.
I own 250 shares and I still don't fully understand the ramifications of whats going on, but if Ichan can show 26% returns, then those of you who show less should shut up now.
I don't care to see CalPERS or anybody yielding under 20% open their mouth.