
Carl Icahn Says Apple Is Massively Undervalued - cyphersanctus
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/carl-icahn-apple/
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npalli
Michael Dell after his experience with Carl Icahn [1] and the bitter battle to
take his company private.

“It’s a big poker game to him [Carl Icahn],” says Dell. “It’s not about the
customers. It’s not about the people. It’s not about changing the world. He
doesn’t give a crap about any of that. He didn’t know whether we made nuclear
power plants or French fries. He didn’t care.”

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2013/10/30/you-w...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2013/10/30/you-
wont-have-michael-dell-to-kick-around-anymore/)

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sgnelson
You should read this as "Carl Icahn wants to pump and dump Apple Stock."

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untothebreach
FWIW, he does claim that he won't do that.

Depends on how trustworthy he is, though.

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guyzero
He's going to pump now and will dump later at his leisure.

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salimmadjd
You should read how Icahn destroyed TWA [1] before believing a word he says.

[1] [http://blog.pmarca.com/2014/03/18/when-carl-icahn-ran-a-
comp...](http://blog.pmarca.com/2014/03/18/when-carl-icahn-ran-a-company-the-
story-of-twa/)

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fleitz
Carl: Hmm... I think I should sell my apple shares... but who would buy them
all...?

Carl: I know, I'll get apple to buy my shares!

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metaphorm
he's so full of it. he wants a stock buyback program to boost his own shares
valuation. that's all. this guy is a scam artist.

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andrewrice
He's expressed this sentiment before, and has been pressing Apple to expand
its stock buyback program since he first invested in the company. See this
2013 article from Bloomberg: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-13/carl-
icahn-disclose...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-13/carl-icahn-
discloses-large-stake-in-apple-in-tweet.html)

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lotsofmangos
_promising that if Apple heeds his advice, he won’t sell off any of his
approximately 53 million shares._

If he really thinks the stock is undervalued, why would he sell in the absence
of a share buyback anyway? If he is right then surely he should be buying
those shares himself and waiting as the buyback would only be bringing forward
a rise, not creating it.

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nly
It's a good point, but investing more than a certain % of your assets (roughly
proportional to your perceived edge) in any one thing, is a bad idea.

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chollida1
I think this is a much better url as it has the actual letter that the article
is based on.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/carl-icahn-apple-
letter-2014-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/carl-icahn-apple-
letter-2014-10)

To be fair to him, he's not the only person who thinks apple should be doing
more with their cash:

[http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/21/hedge-fund-
manager...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/21/hedge-fund-manager-
david-einhorn-still-thinks-apple-should-do-more-with-its-cash)

I'm sure most people have heard about Icahn. But if not check out his
Wikipedia page to see a list of investments he's gone activist on:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Icahn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Icahn)

The guy is an interesting man. His most recent endeavor was to prop up the
company herbalife. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-22/icahn-
makes-234-mil...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-22/icahn-
makes-234-million-as-ackman-fails-with-herbalife.html)

He sure isn't the kind of hedge fund manager that sits behind a desk and
stares at his Bloomberg terminal all day:)

The man is 78, and worth 23 billion and he's still picking fights, I hope I
have that kind of energy when I get that old, maybe not the fight picking
part:)

 __EDIT __to be clear, I 'm not making a judgement on his character or if he's
a net positive to the market. You may see him as good or bad.

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pothibo
From what I read from him, I can only feel that he's one of the example of
what's wrong with capitalism. He only serves himself (Pump & dump, Herbalife,
etc.)

He's been a cancer to any company that he's invested in. Check the Family
Dollar history. Force owner to sell, then when a serious offer shows up, he
sells his share before the deal is closed.

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q2
I wonder if Tim Cook really reads that lengthy letter or some legal expert
will just summarize the content. TL;DR version might be helpful.

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cpwright
I would be surprised if Cook did not read it. Its not that lengthy, and Icahn
does own just a bit under 1% of the company, if I did my math right(53M shares
* 100.98 / 596B market cap).

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JohnTHaller
Cook should read it and then do the opposite of whatever Icahn wants given
Icahn's track record of wrecking companies.

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wil421
Maybe he can schedule a takeover then start selling off their assets. Then
move to take the company private again.

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anonbanker
I might be in the minority here, but I want to see Icahn pump-and-dump Apple.
Now that Jobs is gone, there is nobody running the ship that is competent
enough to stop Icahn. He'll devalue the company, and bleed it dry if allowed,
just like he's trying to do with eBay right now. And this makes me happy as a
clam; Now that Microsoft is steadily marching toward irrelevance, it'd be
peachy keen if we could take down the usurper to that throne (Apple), and give
the GNU/Linux and BSD families the attention they rightfully deserve.

Could you imagine? if Icahn bled Apple to death, Ubuntu would be the 800lb
Gorilla.

