Carl Icahn’s letter to Apple chief executive Tim Cook: Apple should be worth $1.5 trillion
Another day, another missive from Carl Icahn. The activist investor has written an open letter to Apple chief executive Tim Cook saying shares in the Silicon Valley giant are massively undervalued, and that they should be worth $240 each – a figure which would value the company at a cool $1.5 trillion (£957bn).
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"It is our belief that large institutional investors, Wall Street analysts and the news media alike continue to misunderstand Apple and generally fail to value Apple's net cash separately from its business, fail to adjust earnings to reflect Apple's real cash tax rate, fail to recognize the growth prospects of Apple entering new categories, and fail to recognize that Apple will maintain pricing and margins, despite significant evidence to the contrary," Icahn explains.
"Collectively, these failures have caused Apple's earnings multiple to stay irrationally discounted, in our view."
Considering Apple currently has the largest market cap of any company, at $750.64bn, that's a strong statement to make.
He also called for an acceleration to its share repurchase programme, saying that Apple has "demonstrated a track record of excellence and success when entering new categories… because of this, we encourage both accelerated and larger-magnitude share repurchases as you consider how to allocate capital going forward".
Shares in Apple rose more than one per cent to $130.48 in late morning trading in New York.