Recently, Apple Inc.’s CEO Tim Cook announced that he took a decision to complete his labor contract with the company this year. He told reporters in the interview about the Board’s resolution to spend $14 billion to buy back its own stock. According to financial reports, Apple allocated $40 billion to buy back its shares last year. Tim Cook called it “a record for any company over a similar span". Indeed, no company has ever spent so much on its own stock purchase. However, the management is going to increase the volume of stock buybacks. Last year, the iPhone maker disclosed the program authorizing Apple to spend $60 billion on its stock through December 2015. “It means that we are betting on Apple. It means that we are really confident on what we are doing and what we plan to do,” Apple’s Chief shared his ideas on the outlook. However, shareholder Carl Icahn thinks it is not enough. Carl Icahn invested $4 billion in Apple stock. The billionaire is sure that the company has got spare funds to expand the stock repurchase program. The regular shareholders’ meeting will be held in the near future. So, Icahn’s idea might be taken into account and the stock owners will be able to vote on expanding the repurchase program by extra $50 billion. For the latest few weeks, company’s shares tumbled to $506 apiece from $550 in late January. The earnings announcement is mainly to blame for such a slump. It showed the turnover decline to 51 million smartphones instead of 55 million expected by analysts. Bearing this in mind, Apple Inc. revised its earlier forecasts and warned that the sales proceeds might drop in Q1 2014 compared to a year ago.
