Neil Hughes
Billionaire hedge fund manager David Einhorn, who once had a high-profile spat with Apple management over the company's use of cash, increased his stake in the iPhone maker significantly last quarter, new filings reveal.
In a 13-F filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Einhorn's Greenlight Capital disclosed that it owned 11.2 million shares of AAPL stock as of Sept. 30. That was a significant increase from the 7.4 million his fund owned at the end of the previous quarter, on June 30.
Einhorn increased his stake in Apple whil ecutitng positions in SunEdison Inc. and Micron Technology. The hedge fund manager is under scrutiny after facing his worst year since the financial crisis, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Though Einhorn is buying in Apple, other hedge funds have cut their stake in the company, filings show. Among the funds selling off shares of AAPL cited by Reuters were Adage Capital Partners (now at 8.5 million shares), Coatue Management LLC (6.8 million) Appaloosa Management (1.3 million), Nevsky Capital (908,156), and Bridgewater Associates (274,852 shares). Tiger Eye Capital also cut its stake from 356,502 shares in June to none in September.
Einhorn's Greenlight Capital first bought into Apple in 2010. The hedge fund manager's original intent was to be a passive shareholder, but as the company's cash built up and its market valuation dropped, he felt the situation got "out of hand."
He eventually sued Apple in 2013, accusing the company of having a "problem" with hoarding cash. Einhorn and his fund argued that the company was accruing cash in a manner that hurt investors, though the lawsuit was eventually dropped that same year.
Facing pressure from investors, fund managers and others, Apple has gradually increased its quarterly dividend payments and share buyback program on an annual basis, investing more of its massive cash pile back into itself. As of the end of the September quarter, Apple had $205 billion in cash, most of it held overseas.
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10 Comments
I would suspect Tim has been active as well.
It isn't $205B cash; they have $120B delta between assets and liabilities, or you could look at investment assets less long term debt... Or...
[quote name="aaarrrgggh" url="/t/190224/hedge-fund-manager-david-einhorn-ups-stake-in-apple-stock-to-11-7m-shares#post_2807596"]It isn't $205B cash; they have $120B delta between assets and liabilities, or you could look at investment assets less long term debt... Or...[/quote] Your post might have been accurate and okay if it didn't start out with "It isn't" because it sure as hell is!!! I guess in your eagerness to prove somebody else wrong you forgot to actually read the statement. He was talking about how much cash Apple is holding - not their net worth - so his statement that it is 205 Billion is accurate. Your response would be analogous to me saying I weigh 180 pounds and you saying "No - you're 10 pounds overweight!!!". The statement might be true without the word "No"! Anyhow - if you're going to call somebody out for being wrong - be SURE they're wrong or you're just making yourself look stupid. In this case you could have easily presented your information without that first sentence - but you didn't and now it's you that's wrong! Oh well - live and learn I guess....
[quote name="sog35" url="/t/190224/hedge-fund-manager-david-einhorn-ups-stake-in-apple-stock-to-11-7m-shares#post_2807585"]Good to see. But Apple will continue to get abused by Wall Street as long as the stock is open to option traders, high speed computer trader, short traders, and manipulators. How do you stop these traders/manipulators? You remove AAPL from the Nasdaq and all public exchanges. Have the shares traded on a PRIVATE exchange that puts restrictions on buy/sell activity. Any AAPL shares bought must be held for a minimum of 30 days. The stock will once again be an investment stock not a trading stock. This would be very easy to do. The public shares would simply be converted to private shares. You would still receive dividends and have the ability to buy shares at any time and sell shares after a 30 day hold period. But isn't it ILLEGAL for a private company to have more than 2,000 shareholders. No. THERE IS NO LAW ON THE BOOKS THAT REQUIRES A CORPORATION TO HAVE THEIR STOCK SOLD ON PUBLIC EXCHANGES. PERIOD. IT IS UP TO THE CORPORATION TO ALLOW ITS SHARES TO BE ON A PUBLIC EXCHANGE. THE ONLY LAW IS IF A COMPANY HAS OVER 2,000 SHAREHOLDERS THEY NEED TO FILE QUARTERLY WITH THE SEC. Thus Apple can easily go private by taking their shares off of the public exchanges (thus getting rid of manipulation of Wall Street) and continue to file quarterly financials with the SEC. Is having Apple on a private exchange unprecedented? Hell no. Mutual Funds are bought/sold on private exchanges. You can buy shares of other private companies on private exchanges. This is nothing new. Once Apple goes private they no longer need to buyback stock since without Wall Street manipulation the stock will quickly reach fair value. Thus shareholders will be rewarded with more dividends. Apple can also focus more on LONG TERM strategy instead of beating random benchmarks set each quarter by Wall Street ANAL-yst. Also taking Apple off of the public exchanges will give less incentive for the media to plant false stories. Without getting kickbacks from Apple short traders there will be no incentive to write false FUD. [/quote] At the risk of prolonging a topic that seems to keep coming back again and again and again, I'm going to ask anyhow... If this is such a good idea - then why are you the only one pushing for it? Why don't any of the powerful fund managers holding millions of shares push for this also?
[quote name="tenly" url="/t/190224/hedge-fund-manager-david-einhorn-ups-stake-in-apple-stock-to-11-7m-shares/0_40#post_2807744"] At the risk of prolonging a topic that seems to keep coming back again and again and again, I'm going to ask anyhow... If this is such a good idea - then why are you the only one pushing for it? Why don't any of the powerful fund managers holding millions of shares push for this also?[/quote] Because unlike sog they see it as a non starter and Apple going private is as likely as DED saying Android is better than anything Apple can do.