Billionaire Investor Carl Icahn Drops Apple Buyback Proposal

Apple cash

A new letter signed by billionaire investor Carl Icahn reveals he gave up on Apple’s $50 billion buyback push. He says, “there is no reason to persist with our non-binding proposal” (via BusinessInsider).

While Wall Street has been disappointed with Apple’s quarterly earnings – which pushed the company’s stock price down – Carl Icahn has purchased $1 billion worth of stock, becoming one of the biggest company shareholders. He has also been pushing for a $50 billion stock buyback.

However, something happened over the weekend: ISS told shareholders to vote against the buyback proposal, which disappointed Icahn, but as the letter shows, he gave up on the buyback plan, especially since Apple is close to fulfilling his repurchase target. The iPhone maker has repurchased $14 billion worth of stock over the past two weeks, and is on track to repurchasing at least $32 billion in shares.

As Tim Cook describes them, these recent actions taken by the company to repurchase shares have been both “opportunistic” and “aggressive” and we are supportive. In light of these actions, and ISS’s recommendation, we see no reason to persist with our non-binding proposal, especially when the company is already so close to fulfilling our requested repurchase target.

You can read Icahn’s letter by following this link.

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