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Five 'dividend' stories April 2012 - June 2015

Apple’s Japanese bond sale will raise more than expected, at $2B

Ben Lovejoy Jun 4 2015 - 6:52 am PT

Apple’s first ever Japanese bond sale will raise more than had been previously estimated. An SEC filing reveals that the sale will raise ¥250B ($2B), more than the ¥200 billion ($1.6B) which had been reported earlier.

Apple is selling the bonds in Japanese yen due to the extremely low interest rates in the country, with Apple offering a rate of just 0.35%, paid twice a year in June and December. Goldman Sachs, one of the two underwriters of the bond issue, said that the market would welcome the offering.

“It’s Apple’s first time issuing in yen. Their ratings, credit fundamentals and familiarity within the Japanese market are very high,” said a Goldman Sachs banker. “The outcome proves how much the market welcomed seeing this issuer come up.”

Although Apple has huge cash reserves, the majority of this is held overseas and cannot be repatriated back to the U.S. without large tax liabilities. It is cheaper for the company to borrow money to fund its stock buyback program and to fund dividend payments. Apple announced in April that it will spend $200B by the end of March 2017 on a mix of share repurchases and dividend payments.

Photo: randomwire.com

Apple boosts capital return program, increasing dividend and share repurchase

Jeremy Horwitz Apr 27 2015 - 1:45 pm PT

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Photo: huffpost.com

Expanding upon its previously announced programs to return cash to investors, Apple today announced that it will use a total of $200 billion of cash by the end of March 2017 to fund the repurchase of Apple stock and the payment of dividends. The enhanced capital return program authorizes the purchase of an additional $50 billion of Apple shares, now totaling $140 billion, settles vesting restricted stock units, and increases Apple’s stock dividend by 11% to $0.52 per share. Apple’s dividend will be payable May 14, 2015 to shareholders holding Apple stock as of May 11, 2015.

Apple notes that it has already returned over $112 billion to shareholders, including $80 billion through repurchases of Apple stock. The program will be funded in part using domestic and international debt markets.

“We believe Apple has a bright future ahead, and the unprecedented size of our capital return program reflects that strong confidence,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “While most of our program will focus on buying back shares, we know that the dividend is very important to many of our investors, so we’re raising it for the third time in less than three years.”

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Apple plans $5 billion bond offering to cover stock repurchases, dividends, capital needs (Updated)

Jeremy Horwitz Feb 2 2015 - 7:46 am PT

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Having filed a prospectus today with the SEC, Apple plans to offer around $5 billion in bonds, following a 2013 bond offering of $17 billion, and a 2014 offering of $12 billion. While Apple’s corporate coffers stand at over $178 billion after its most recent record-breaking quarter, even thriving companies sometimes use bond offerings to fund projects, lessening tax consequences in the process.

Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs put together the offering, which Apple says will be used towards

repurchases of our common stock and payment of dividends under our program to return capital to shareholders, funding for working capital, capital expenditures and acquisitions and repayment of debt.

As noted by The Wall Street Journal, the bonds will mature in 5 to 30 years, with a 10-year bond offering a 0.95% greater return than government-issued Treasurys. Apple carries a Moody’s rating of Aa1, the service’s second-highest rating, suggesting that the investment is exceptionally low-risk.

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The $210B cash Apple would have by now without the dividend & share buyback schemes

Ben Lovejoy Aug 18 2014 - 6:05 am PT

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Asymco’s Horace Dediu has been doing some number-crunching on AAPL’s cash stockpile, which sat at around $120B before the company began paying dividends and initiated a share buyback scheme two years ago. He calculates that, had nothing changed, Apple would now be sitting on around $210B in cash.

To put that into perspective, there are only about a dozen companies in the world Apple wouldn’t have been able to buy outright for that amount.

Despite the $53B spent on buying its own shares and the $21.5B paid out in dividends, the continuing flow of profits into the company means that Apple today still has about the same amount of cash it did two years ago. The share purchases themselves have proven a good deal for Apple as their value has increased.

Dediu also wryly comments on the ‘Apple is doomed’ sentiment voiced by some analysts based on ‘only’ linear growth, noting that while that “might be seen as evidence of failure, it’s more useful to treat this vast quantity as a recognition of past successes.”

Google CEO Larry Page says Steve Jobs’ fury over Android was just to rally troops

Jordan Kahn Apr 4 2012 - 10:22 am PT

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In a recent interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Google’s Chief Executive Officer Larry Page talked at length about his new role as chief and his plans for the future of Android, Motorola, and the rest of the company. Much the interview revolved around Android and Google’s relationship with other companies, and Page was asked about his relationship with Steve Jobs toward the end. He was also asked about the state of Android tablets and his thoughts on Apple’s recently announced dividend.

When the interviewer mentioned Google and Jobs had their “differences” about Android, presumably referring to Jobs’ claims that Android is a “stolen product,” Page claimed Jobs’ anger toward Android/Google was “actually for show”:

I think the Android differences were actually for show. I had a relationship with Steve. I wouldn’t say I spent a lot of time with him over the years, but I saw him periodically. Curiously enough, actually, he requested that meeting. He sent me an e-mail and said: “Hey, you want to get together and chat?” I said, “Sure, I’ll come over.” And we had a very nice talk. We always did when we had a discussion generally… He was quite sick. I took it as an honor that he wanted to spend some time with me. I figured he wanted to spend time with his family at that point. He had a lot of interesting insights about how to run a company and that was pretty much what we discussed.

He continued when encouraged to elaborate on his “for show” comment:

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