Carl Icahn Backing Off Apple Buyback Activism

The long and short of the matter is that Icahn is backing down from his pressure. He had already said that he would lighten up his pressure, but now he appears to be backing off entirely.

Apple shares closed at $519.68 on Friday, and the shares are fighting around being in positive and negative territory this morning right after the open. Keep in mind that the consensus Wall Street analyst price target on Apple shares is up closer to $585.

Icahn’s letter is copied below:

Dear Fellow Apple Shareholders,

While we are disappointed that last night ISS recommended against our proposal, we do not altogether disagree with their assessment and recommendation in light of recent actions taken by the company to aggressively repurchase shares in the market.

In their recommendation, ISS points out, and we agree, that “on the spectrum of options for allocating capital, the board appears to have been sluggish only in returning excess cash to shareholders,” and even though the company has in place “one of the largest buybacks in history” we agree with ISS that this effort seems “like bailing with a leaky bucket” when “given the scale of the company’s cash reserves.”

That being said, we also agree with ISS’s observation, taking into account that the company recently repurchased in “two weeks alone” $14 billion worth in shares, that “for fiscal 2014, it appears on track to repurchase at least $32 billion in shares.” Our proposal, as ISS points out, “thus effectively only asks the board to spend another $18 billion on repurchases in the current year.”

As Tim Cook describes them, these recent actions taken by the company to repurchase shares have been both “opportunistic” and “aggressive” and we are supportive. In light of these actions, and ISS’s recommendation, we see no reason to persist with our non-binding proposal, especially when the company is already so close to fulfilling our requested repurchase target.

Furthermore, in light of Tim Cook’s confirmed plan to launch new products in new categories this year (in addition to an exciting product roadmap with respect to new products in existing categories), we are extremely excited about Apple’s future. Additionally, we are pleased that Tim and the board have exhibited the “opportunistic” and “aggressive” approach to share repurchases that we hoped to instill with our proposal. It is our expectation that Tim and the board continue to exhibit this behavior as fiduciaries to the shareholders since they clearly seem to agree that our company continues to be extremely undervalued, and we all share a common optimism with respect to the company’s bright long term future.