Icahn pressures Apple with $50B buyback proposal
Carl Icahn is taking his battle with Apple CEO Tim Cook over the tech giant’s hefty cash stash directly to shareholders.
“Gave $AAPL notice we’ll be making a … proposal to call for vote to increase buyback program,” the billionaire corporate agitator tweeted on Wednesday.
Gave $AAPL notice we’ll be making a precatory proposal to call for vote to increase buyback program, although not at $150 billion level.
— Carl Icahn (@Carl_C_Icahn) December 4, 2013“Although not at $150 billion level,” he added — hinting that he’d tone down a previous request over stock buybacks that may have been seen as too high by Apple’s adoring investors.
Sources told The Post that the proposal, which will go to a vote at Apple’s annual meeting in late February, will seek to boost the current buyback program to $50 billion through September.
The vote is nonbinding, which means the board could reject it even if it gets majority support.
By comparison, Apple spent about $16 billion during the third quarter as part of its plan, announced earlier this year, to buy back as much as $60 billion in stock over three years.
Icahn has been agitating to boost the program since he first announced taking a stake in the iPad maker in August. He sent a letter to Cook in October demanding an answer to his request for Apple to boost the plan to $150 billion. To date, he says, he has yet to receive a reply.
The once-highflying stock has been sucking wind, and is flat over the past 52 weeks, compared to the S&P 500 index’s gain of 27 percent. Apple fell $1.32 to $565 on Wednesday.
Icahn currently owns 4.7 million shares, giving him a stake of 0.53 percent of outstanding shares.
In the letter, Icahn promised not to take part in the buyback as a show of good faith.
“There is nothing short term about my intentions here,” he said.