Apple Pays $2.5 Billion in Dividends to Shareholders

[zakislam]

iPhone maker distributing $45 billion over next three years. You can thank Tim Cook for that.

Apple Pays $2.5 Billion in Dividends to Shareholders : Read more

 

[redeemer]

Shut up and Give Me the Money!

 

[Niva]

Actually not bad, based on today's closing price of ~$500 USD a quarterly dividend of 2.65 is about 2% return investment per year. I had missed the part that Apple even pays a dividend. That being said if it's really sitting on such a huge pile of cash it probably should be paying more.

 

[hate machine]

"Consequently, Apple is the richest company on the planet."

Sorry, even if you do not count Saudi Oil kings which are rumoured to be worth in the trillions... Exxon has assets that totally eclipse Apple's. At the end of 2007 they had 72 billion oil-equivalent barrels and oil is very expensive. I will let you look up the pricing per barrel and do the math. Even then if you take a look at companies like Oracle and IBM with their IP and other assets they dwarf Apple's cash pile plus their assets.

 

[ta152h]

I don't know what the point of sitting on so much cash is, especially when interest rates are below inflation rates.

Apple should do something useful with it, like buy Portugal.

 

[FFH]

I already forgot everything I learned in finance class. I do remember that sitting on a mountain of money isn't good. It has something to do with inflation, and in some cases it's better to leverage debt if you don't have money. I heard that 3M tries to make most of their profit from new products every 6-8 months. I don't get why Apple isn't using more money for R&D.

 

[crewton]

[citation][nom]Niva[/nom]Actually not bad, based on today's closing price of ~$500 USD a quarterly dividend of 2.65 is about 2% return investment per year. I had missed the part that Apple even pays a dividend. That being said if it's really sitting on such a huge pile of cash it probably should be paying more.[/citation]

They made it 2.65 when the stock was closer to 700 a share...it was a pretty bad dividend that is only decent now that the stock has lost 30% of it's value. I'd rather have my shares be worth 700 with 0 dividend than 500 with a 2% dividend...

 

[tomfreak]

to stop them from dumping Apple stocks?

 

[kinggremlin]

[citation][nom]hate machine[/nom]"Consequently, Apple is the richest company on the planet."Sorry, even if you do not count Saudi Oil kings which are rumoured to be worth in the trillions... Exxon has assets that totally eclipse Apple's. At the end of 2007 they had 72 billion oil-equivalent barrels and oil is very expensive. I will let you look up the pricing per barrel and do the math. Even then if you take a look at companies like Oracle and IBM with their IP and other assets they dwarf Apple's cash pile plus their assets.[/citation]

When they say richest, in this case, they mean cash, not total assets. Oil is worth a lot, but only if someone is willing to pay for it, you can't buy things with oil.

 

[ien2222]

[citation][nom]kinggremlin[/nom]When they say richest, in this case, they mean cash, not total assets. Oil is worth a lot, but only if someone is willing to pay for it, you can't buy things with oil.[/citation]

Cash is only worth something if people place value on it, it's the same thing. And you can buy things with oil, it's called bartering.

 

[nurgletheunclean]

Nobody buys appl for the dividend. 2% yeald is right in line with other mega caps (crappy). Some top paying mega's would be astrazenica at 6.11% GlaxoSmithKline at 5.15% AT&T 5.08% Verizon 4.63% and Conoco Philips 4.5%.

This is non-news, especially for TH.

 

[dalethepcman]

And so the downward spiral continues... instead of reinvesting its cash reserves into the company, its given in to pressure from investors sad that their stocks are dropping in value. How about you make all those whiny investors happy, and follow Dell's lead.

Public trading should be used to raise funds for your company. If you ever give away more than 50% of your stock, then as soon as you have enough funds your should do a stock buyback to return more decision making to the company's elected officials. The ones that are truly invested into the company, not just trying to squeeze profit from it. Instead Apple has caved and gives more power to the stockholders elected officials...

 

[shqtth]

owever, it has faced a lawsuit from a key shareholder who believes the company should share more of its cash, with Apple emphasizing that it's "evaluating" every possible option to do so.



That shareholder knew what he was getting himself into before he bought the non-dividend paying Apple share, unless he was one of those lucky guys that bought the shares/stock when it was extremely cheap if thats the case he should shut up and be thankful of the 200%+ increase of his shares/stock value over the 10 years.

Some investors complain too much.

 

[shiitaki]

[citation][nom]FFH[/nom]I already forgot everything I learned in finance class. I do remember that sitting on a mountain of money isn't good. It has something to do with inflation, and in some cases it's better to leverage debt if you don't have money. I heard that 3M tries to make most of their profit from new products every 6-8 months. I don't get why Apple isn't using more money for R&D.[/citation]

A corporation can deposite cash in to a bank, and then borrow ten times that amount to use in the financial markets. How much money do you think you can make with 1 trillion dollars? This is common, and the reason the stock and commodity markets are so inflated.

 

[velocityg4]

This seems idiotic to me. Why not use that money to expand into other markets, R&D, &c? Instead they are frittering it away. The average investor will probably get about $10 to $20 out of this.

I guess all of Steve Jobs brilliant decisions were for nothing. When he originally ran the company Apple was on top. Then the successors ran it into the ground were it was about to go under. Then he came back and Apple quickly climbed back up to the top. Not just in terms of the computer industry. But ultimately his decisions led to it being the most valuable in the world. Now standard run of the mill executives will run it back into the ground. Just like what seems to happen with every other big company. More concern over next quarters returns rather than a strategic goal.

Whether you like Apple or Steve Jobs or not. You have to admit he was a brilliant businessman. Who knew what would sell.

Heck with the money they have they could fund a mercenary army to conquer a decent sized nation. Then have the ultimate tax shelter, iPhone factory labor force, &c.