By: iPadfanzz staff on February 8, 2013
Apple has reported that is now has $137 billion in cash, which is almost one-third of its market capitalization.
This is massive amount of cash that can company can have.
“Apple must examine all of its options to unlock the growing value of its balance sheet for all shareholders,” David Einhorn, president of Greenlight Capital, said. His firm owns more than 1.3 million Apple shares. Einhorn said he has urged the company’s management to issue high-yielding preferred shares to reward investors with some of that cash pile, which amounts to more than $145 per Apple share.
“We find ourselves in the fortunate position of continuing to generate large amounts of cash, including $23 billion in cash flow from operations in the last quarter alone. Apple’s management team and Board of Directors have been in active discussions about returning additional cash to shareholders. As part of our review, we will thoroughly evaluate Greenlight Capital’s current proposal to issue some form of preferred stock. We welcome Greenlight’s views and the views of all of our shareholders,” Apple said in a statement.
For long investors have speculated what Apple can do with such a large pile of cash. Here’s our view:
—Create a stack of dollar bills 9,300 miles high, 38 times higher than the orbit of the International Space Station.
—Buy 100,000 luxury Manhattan apartments, enough to house the population of Omaha.
—Give every American a check for $437.
—Buy 213 million iPhones at the average wholesale price, enough for every American who lives east of the Mississippi River, plus Texas.
—Provide shareholders with a one-time dividend of $145 per share. (The stock closed Thursday at $456.95)
—Apple could buy Facebook, Groupon, LinkedIn, Netflix, Pandora, Research In Motion (Blackberry), Yahoo, Yelp, Zillow and Zynga —and have more than $2 billion left to spare.
—Foot the bill for U.S. federal spending on education for two years.
—Give every Apple employee a bonus of $1.7 million.
—Double U.S. foreign economic aid to the developing world for three and half years.
