Apple has just announced that it is hosting a special press conference tomorrow that is entirely dedicated to the announcement of the outcome of their cash balance discussions. Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer will be hosting the special conference call today, March 19th, at 6AM PDT (9AM EDT), which will be live streamed here.
As of the end of December, Apple had around $97.6 billion in cash and liquid investments in its possession, and investors, bloggers, and analysts alike have been curious about what Apple plans to do with this heap of cash. In the past year alone, Apple has acquired Anobit, an Israeli chip maker, along with Chomp, an App Store search service. On top of this, Apple also might have spent $3.9 billion out of its reserves to secure deals for LCD displays and similar components last year.
While Apple may have done some light spending out of the reserve, Tim Cook did mention to investors at the Goldman Sachs Technology Conference last month that Apple will have a careful approach to spending its money. He infamously reassured investors that the company has no plans to host a toga party:
I think everyone would want us to be deliberate and really think it through. That’s what we’re doing. We’re not going to go have a toga party and do something outlandish. People don’t have to worry that it’s burning a hole in our pocket.
One thing that company shareholders have requested is that Apple offer a dividend; suggestions have been abound that some of the money in the company’s reserves be put towards either a one-time dividend, or an annual dividend. In fact, I’ve seen quite a bit of discussion in my own Twitter timeline about this as well; some people that I follow were debating about whether or not investing in AAPL is worth it, considering that the only profit would be from selling the stock at a later date. Whatever the case, we will surely get a better idea of what Apple has in mind for the cash come today.
Monday’s event will be exclusively dedicated to the announcement of the cash balance discussions; Apple will not have anything to share on its quarterly earnings, or any other topics for that matter.
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