David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital is een hedge fund dat aandelen van Apple in de portefeuille heeft en deze was niet tevreden over het feit dat Apple relatief weinig van de enorme stapel geld waar ze op zitten aan de investeerders teruggeeft. Daarom sleepten dit hedge fund Apple voor de rechter en Apple heeft nu een openbaar antwoord gepubliceerd als antwoord op deze lawsuit.

Statement by Apple
By early last year, Apple’s cash balance had built to a point beyond what we needed to run our business and maintain flexibility to take advantage of strategic opportunities, so we announced a plan to return $45 billion to shareholders over three years. As of next week we will have executed $10 billion of that plan.

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.

As a part of our efforts to further enhance corporate governance and serve our shareholders’ best interests, Proposal #2 in our proxy includes some recommended changes to our articles of incorporation. These changes were recommended independently of Greenlight’s proposal and would not preclude Apple from adopting their concept. Contrary to Greenlight’s statements, adoption of Proposal #2 would not prevent the issuance of preferred stock. Currently, Apple’s articles of incorporation provide for the issuance of “blank check” preferred stock by the Board of Directors without shareholder approval. If Proposal #2 is adopted, our shareholders would have the right to approve the issuance of preferred stock. As such, Proposal #2 has the support of many of our shareholders.

We remain committed to having an ongoing dialogue with our shareholders to get perspectives around return of capital and driving shareholder value.

Dit heeft het aandeel Apple in ieder geval geen kwaad gedaan, in tegendeel, het aandeel Apple op de beurs kreeg er juist een boost door.