veröffentlichte Brief Icahn's könnte der Apple-Aktie heute einen Schub geben. Hier die "conclusion":
Conclusion To be totally clear, this letter is in no way intended as a criticism of you as CEO, nor is it intended to be critical of anything you or your team are doing from an operational perspective at Apple. Quite to the contrary, we could not be more supportive of you and your team, and of the excellent work being done at Apple, a company that continues to change the world through technological innovation. The intention of this letter is to communicate two things to you: (1) given the earnings growth we forecast for Apple, we continue to think that the market misunderstands and dramatically undervalues Apple and (2) the excess liquidity the company continues to hold on its balance sheet affords the company an amazing opportunity to take further advantage of this valuation disconnect by accelerating share repurchases. As mentioned before, we thank you and the Board for being receptive to us when we last communicated our perspective regarding the company's valuation and requested more share repurchases. It is our understanding that you solicited feedback from various large shareholders concerning our previous request, but we don't think anyone would deny that we were a key influence with respect to your previous decision to increase share repurchases. We thank you for being receptive to us and other large shareholders, all of whom are investment professionals offering advice concerning an investment decision, as the decision to repurchase shares is in effect the company making an investment in itself. And given the size of our investment and our proven track record with respect to public equity investing, we hope you will be receptive once again. Between January 1, 2000 through September 30, 2014, an investment in the stock of Icahn Enterprises L.P. (NASDAQ: IEP) had an annualized gross return of 21.5%. The Sargon Portfolio (a designated portfolio of assets co-managed by Brett Icahn and David Schechter within the private investment funds comprising Icahn Enterprises' Investment segment, subject to the supervision and control of Carl Icahn) has generated annualized gross returns of 36.5% since its formation on April 1, 2010 through September 30, 2014 with $6.6 billion of assets under management as of September 30, 2014. We believe this performance speaks for itself with respect to our expertise. At today's price, Apple is one of the best investments we have ever seen from a risk reward perspective, and the size of our position is a testament to this. This investment represents the largest position in our investment history, reflecting the strength of the convictions we have expressed in this letter. While we recognize and applaud the company's previously increased share repurchase authorization, we ask you to consider our advice once again (to the benefit of all shareholders) and consider accelerating share repurchases again via a tender offer. Our valuation analysis tells us that Apple should trade at $203 per share today, and we believe the disconnect between that price and today's price reflects an undervaluation anomaly that will soon disappear. Mutual funds today face fierce competition with index funds that simply match the S&P500 index (in which Apple has a weight of 3.4%). Surprisingly, many mutual funds are underweight Apple, meaning that Apple represents less than 3.4% of their overall portfolio. This also means they are more likely to underperform the index if Apple outperforms, which is obviously an eventuality that should concern them. With more and more funds flowing from mutual funds to index funds (because mutual funds have consistently failed to outperform) the last thing they will want to see is their underperformance exacerbated by remaining underweight Apple as it continues to outperform. As the strength of the earnings growth we forecast materializes, and these funds scramble to correct this mistake, only to find themselves competing in the market to do so, a de facto short squeeze may occur, and we can only hope that the company has repurchased all the shares it can before that happens. Sincerely, Carl C. Icahn Brett Icahn |