What Will Apple Do With $97.6 Billion Surplus?
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Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesUPDATE: Apple announced Monday morning that it will initiate a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime in the fourth quarter of 2012, as well as a $10 billion share repurchase program in its fiscal year 2013.
In a statement, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “We have used some of our cash to make great investments in our business through increased research and development, acquisitions, new retail store openings, strategic prepayments and capital expenditures in our supply chain, and building out our infrastructure. You’ll see more of all of these in the future. Even with these investments, we can maintain a war chest for strategic opportunities and have plenty of cash to run our business. So we are going to initiate a dividend and share repurchase program.”
The company’s CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, added, “Combining dividends, share repurchases, and cash used to net-share-settle vesting RSUs, we anticipate utilizing approximately $45 billion of domestic cash in the first three years of our programs.”
(CUPERTINO, Calif.) — With nearly $100 billion in extra cash sitting around, will Apple use the surplus to pay its shareholders some kind of dividend?
That’s the question on many people’s minds Monday as the company prepares to hold a conference call at 9 a.m. ET.
Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer are expected to announce what the company will do with the $97.6 billion in cash and securities it had accumulated by the end of 2011.
Should the company reward its investors with a dividend, it would mark the first time Apple has done so since 1995.
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