Another $2.8 Billion to be Distributed by Apple to Shareholders
A new report from AppleInsider pointed out in the past few days that the Apple company is going to pay its shareholders a pretty large dividend next Thursday for the results obtained in the past quarter. Thus, Apple is making payments of $2.867 billion to the 940 million shares that the company has, more exactly $3.05 per share.
It seems that Apple is about to share the good results the past quarter brought with its of record shareholders. So, those who have traded Apple shares until the 8th of May will receive the current quarterly dividend. The payment lists have been closed on the 13th of May and will be payed today.
Last year in March, Apple announced that they will come up with a plan for a dividend program, and they also instated a buyback program for shares in value of $10 billion. Even though the company keeps prospering for a couple of years now, that was the first time Apple paid a dividend in the past 17 years. When the program was initiated, the company stated that they will pay $2.65 per share to each shareholder.
Tim Cook Apple’s Chief Executive stated in his last conference call regarding their earnings, that in the past year the company has paid over $10 billion in dividends, and announced that they are planning an aggressive campaign by doubling the capital initially invested in the buyback program, starting with the current quarter.
Apple’s CEO also stated during the same conference that a big part of the cash return flow will be represented by repurchasing shares, and he explained this decision of the Board and the management was taken after realizing that the best way to return cash, would be by simply investing more in Apple. Considering this decision, the next step would be to increase the current dividend with 15%, in order to further attract interested investors.
Tim Cook also explained that the company is generating more money than they need to maintain the business, so they decided to keep the unnecessary cash flowing through this circuit, while also maintaining the advantages gained through strategic opportunities and their flexibility. Apple is keen on the objective of giving attractive revenues to their shareholders through the return of capital and through business performance.
The Dividend Daily posted recently another report regarding Apple’s dividend plan, stating that Apple’s actions is actually appealing for the retail investors, as more and more of them keep investing more money in the company than they ever did so far.
The above mentioned report quoted the TD Ameritrade company, a brokerage firm which is customer oriented, when saying that there wasn’t any moment in the past when clients held so many Apple shares. Considering this, Apple is now the second biggest company in the world who’s stock is held by its customers in shares, right after the General Electric and it has become the most valuable company.
Apple can’t spend its incomes fast enough to create a scratch on the budget
Cook mentioned that through Apple’s new plan of share buyback, they will distribute over $100 billion over the following three years, thus influencing the debt markets to pay little interest towards Apple’s holdings, mostly spread overseas. This action also allows Apple to use its credit ranking, and it helps them avoid the high pitched taxes they would have if those money would have been earned from international clients, and brought into the United States.
Even though Apple is one of the biggest income tax payers in US maybe even the biggest, as Apple’s head of public relations Steve Dowling claimed, this action pulled out some unwanted reports, according to which Apple is abusing its position in order to escape some of these taxes.
Steve Dowling stated for Bloomberg, that during 2012 Apple paid federal corporate income taxes with the total value of $6 billion, a number which sum up to 1 out of every $40 the US government collects in income taxes.
The iPhone giant keeps earning new money in a faster rate than they can pay the dividends and fill out the stock buybacks. By the end of the second fiscal quarter which ended in March, the company’s figures have grown up to $144.7 billion even though they put $10 billion in the buyback program and paid dividends of another $10 billion.
From now on, the company will keep paying the increased quarterly dividend at about a month and a half after another fiscal quarter has ended. Also, these dividends will be reevaluated by the company once a year.
Even though Cook denied at some point to collect the dividend payments ascribed to the 1.125 million shares he has received (total value of $75 million), it seems that a dividend will be paid to those who own Apple’s restricted shares.
If evaluating the company’s actual and future money income, the dividend payment rate is pretty modest. But, considering the quarterly dividend payments which reached $3 billion, Apple is now paying the highest dividends in the whole world.
