back to article Icahn to Cook: 'Buy back $150bn of Apple's stock, or tell me why you won't'

Fresh from his flopped attempt to prevent Dell from going private, activist investor Carl Icahn has turned his attention towards Apple, advising CEO Tim Cook to up his stock-buyback plan to a cool $150bn. Had a cordial dinner with Tim last night. We pushed hard for a 150 billion buyback. We decided to continue dialogue in …

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  1. Anomalous Cowturd
    WTF?

    Pram.

    Teddy bear.

    I am by no stretch of the imagination a fan of Apple, or any of their devices or business practices, but this bloke is a boil on the backside of all the companies he has share-holdings in.

    Offer him, personally, a dollar a share and tell him to fuck off!

    1. dr2chase

      Re: Pram.

      Yeah, WWSS? "F you and your stupid idea. We've made you a ton of money, and if you don't like our stock, sell it!"

  2. Dan Paul

    Carl Icahn Investor from Hell

    As I've said many times before, no one should ever feed this troll (Icahn).

    Not only is he a thieving bully, he is a self serving destroyer of companies, raider of pensions and all around selfish bastard that can't build anything but he sure can tear a company apart and sell it's guts.

    Listening to his advice is likely to empty YOUR pockets. Anyone whose sole skill is gutting corporations serves the "Dark One". Put a stake in his heart (if you can find it), cut off his head and burn the rest of him.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Any banker that lends money to Apple based on the assumption the stock price will rise should be isolated from society and drug tested immediately for everyone's protection.

    That is all.

    1. Hero Protagonist

      How about a banker that lends money to Apple based on the assumption that they can pay it back? Which I'm pretty sure they could.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    lookatme lookatme lookatme lookatme

    Carl's dad was probably not very attentive.

  5. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Institutional Destabilisation

    That's his game. first there was Dell. Now it's Apple's turn. Next? Google? Microsoft? who knows.

    There will no doubt moves afoot in Washington (when they decide to stop being silly children) to ban this sort of behaviour.

    The other move could be to offer him a place on the board. Then he can't do this sort of thing. Also he has to follow the will of the majority of the directors. He also has to be careful with his share purchases and disposals.

    That might just shut him up for a while.

    One of these days he is going to lose a few hundred shed loads of money doing this sort of stuff. Lets hope it is sooner rather than later.

    Mr Icahn, suck on this------------------------------------------------->

    1. MrT

      Aw...

      ...was expecting a picture of a foot-long hotdog at the end of that post...

  6. TWB

    Say nothing

    I hope Apple just don't bother to respond to him.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge
      Devil

      Absolutely right

      Cook's big mistake was talking to the guy in the first place. I think we can safely say that Jobs would not have done.

      Icahn should be ignored under all circumstances, nothing good ever comes from talking to him.

  7. TheFiddler

    Someone stop this guy

    They need to come up with a way to stop this guy "investing" in businesses and trying to tear them down. Maybe if we called his behaviour business terrorism he might get a visit from the nice men who read all our internet traffic.

  8. Captain Queeg

    He can't think of a reason not to?

    There's quite an appeal to sitting on cash - consider the case of GEC after The new broom swept away Lord Weinstock's conservative approach to treasury management:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1339789/Marconi-from-boom-to-bust-in-a-year.html

    The guy is an out and out asset stripper - always has been.

    1. J. R. Hartley

      Re: He can't think of a reason not to?

      Please don't talk about Marconi :/

      1. jonathanb Silver badge

        Re: He can't think of a reason not to?

        Please keep talking about Marconi. No point in making mistakes if we don't learn from them.

        1. P. Lee

          Re: He can't think of a reason not to?

          "Efficiency" in modern parlance is not "doing things while consuming fewer resources." It is "efficiency of money in making more money." Economists' models simplifying machines (processes) and cash into "resources" misleads people into thinking they are the same.

          Successful companies are fiscally conservative, not chasing every dollar, but doing what they know to be profitable. I understand Woolworths made that mistake, playing the stockmarket to make use of "inefficient capital" instead of selling things and then going under when the market dropped. Apple is one of the very few tech companies which have lasted since the 70's. They know the boom-bust tech-product cycle and have been putting away cash which should see them through lean times and they keep an eye on new products to bring to market.

          People and especially analysts jump on the Icahn's bandwagon because mostly they are high-frequency trading. A comment from him can bump the shareprice slightly regardless of the actual likely outcome of the buy-back. Its a secondary market in "information."

    2. asdf
      Trollface

      Re: He can't think of a reason not to?

      >The guy is an out and out asset stripper

      Asset strippers are a good way for realizing shareholder value for a small percentage of companies where upper management is completely inept and is simply eating up dwindling company resources. Blackberry comes immediately to mind. Apple not so much (though their upper management is out to lunch at times these days as well).

  9. asdf

    wow

    I can't believe it 10 posts already and no referring to the man as Icunt as almost always occurs on here (could care less about the self promoting twat myself).

  10. Ben Burch

    Icahn is a parasite.

    1. Will Godfrey Silver badge

      Oi! What have you got against honest parasites. They very rarely actually kill their host.

      1. h3

        He is more like Aid's

  11. kain preacher

    Proper response from Apple. Why would we respond to nonsense ?

  12. bigtimehustler

    If i was running Apple he would get no response at all, thats the contempt he deserves when he acts with such self importance. He holds a minority shareholding in Apple, no sooner should they deal with his demands than some bloke who owns 10 shares.

    1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
      Happy

      Evil thought

      Taking this and running with it. Just imagine they totally ignore him, then give some total unknown (with just a handful of shares) the full red carpet treatment.

      1. FrankAlphaXII

        Re: Evil thought

        What's the total percentage of his holdings? If its less than 1% (or, hell, I'll be nice and say .5%) why the fuck does he think he deserves any of Tim Cook's attention? Apple are smoking crack but they're not stupid enough to let Icahn in, at least I hope they arent.

        (OT: I got hit in the face/eyesocket with a metal table leg yesterday, so if I'm more incoherent or misspelling more than usual, just downvote me and let me know Im not making sense).

  13. jubtastic1

    I don't get it

    The guy's motives could hardly be more transparent yet for some reason the markets seem to ignore...

    Oh, I get it now, he's the guy that starts the gravy train, the market jumps on for a ride leaving the mark with a choice of either handing over the now 'expected' shedload of money or watching their stock price crash after the big guys bail.

    And because the CEO and board are accountable for the results it's hard to ignore, in a nice business you have there, would be a shame if something happened to it sort of way.

  14. Herby

    Why?

    Because!

    That is the proper answer for Mr. Icahn. No more, no less.

    Me? I'd love to have the value of my stock increase.

    1. Irongut

      Re: Why?

      Nah a better answer would be "Well we were thinking about something like that but then you suggested it so we scrapped the idea. Why? Because you're a dick."

  15. and-job

    So iCahn's advice is

    borrow money and pay interest on it so that he can sit in a corner and get all wet between the legs getting off that he has forced another company to bow down to his pressure.

    Apple should tell him to stick his head back where it came from, out of his arse!

    This man is a person that only wants Apple to buy other people's shares to push the value of his own up even higher so that he can then sell at a peak price after shortly because of his bulk selling the price will plummet. Idiots like this are why the world economy is down in the crapper!

  16. mIRCat
    Mushroom

    The new and improved Icahn 5S! 20% more cunty.

    "We're not accepting that. We're not going to accept this 'Well, it's business judgment, too bad.'"

    Who the hell is this 'we'?

    Someone should trademark the word Icunt and sue him every time he opens his useless flap.

    1. Down not across

      Re: The new and improved Icahn 5S! 20% more cunty.

      "Who the hell is this 'we'?"

      Guess he has roped in another company like SAM. Undoubtedly, like SAM, they will bail out as soon as it becomes obvious Icahn's bullying isn't working.

      As has already been said in the thread... the correct response would be not to even dignify his ramblings with a response. And indeed Cook shouldn't have given the time in the first place.

      Buying back shares, as an idea, is sound and makes sense. Within reason. Icahn tends to wander off far beyond reason.

  17. IHateWearingATie

    Corporate finance

    Okay, so Ichan is a tool, but the idea in money to buy back shares is not stupid. A business is funded (with some exceptions) through debt or equity. Equity is expensive due to the expected returns of shareholders being generally higher than debt interest for companies like Apple. One way to reduce gearing (ratio of debt to equity) is to borrow money to buy back shares. That pushes up the share price and which increases shareholder returns and increases the amount of working capital funded by cheap debt rather than expensive equity - after all they do own the business, a fact Steve Jobs seemed to forget when refusing to pay dividends.

    1. Timmay

      Re: Corporate finance

      The reason Apple don't want to do this is because they know their gravytrain will come to an end sometime, maybe soon, maybe just temporarily - therefore, when the shit hits the fan, they can begin to use their cash assets to slowly buy back and support the stock price, until the second coming of Jobs perhaps.

      1. Irongut

        Re: Corporate finance

        That would be the third coming. A bit harder to pull off than the second coming.

  18. MrMur

    apple should buy more of its own shares... Icahn's shares, to be exact.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thought

    Why dont apple buy a majority of shares in Icunt's vehicle and force him to issue dividends and buybacks?

    1. Timmay

      Re: Thought

      Hah, I like this idea - use the $150b to buy iCahn himself and everything he owns

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The man is a blood-sucker....needs a stake through the heart.

  21. cs94njw

    I'm guessing Icahn is pretty rich.

    He must pay a lot of taxes.

    Well... I assume so....

    The US government is a bit short of cash at the moment...

    ... perhaps they should have a look at Icahn and make sure he's being a good boy.

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