Business magnate Carl Icahn dumped his share in Apple by $7 million on Tuesday, along with Greenlight Capital, Blue Ridge Capital and Adage Capital Partners. Meanwhile Caleson's Tiger Global Management take $10.6 million of shares in Apple.
According to CNBC, Icahn has mentioned since last year that he thought the stock was incredibly cheap and that Wall Street does not fully appreciate Apple. "I think Apple is still ridiculously underpriced," he said in September.
Along with Carl Icahn dumped shares in Apple, other big hedge funds also reported to trim their shares in Apple. According to 13F filings reported to SEC, Adage Capital Partners reduced 5% of its shares, and Blue Ridge Capital cut 11%. Greenlight Capital also reported to cut 44% of its share in the Cupertino campus.
As per 13F filings in December 2015, Carl Icahn, Greenlight, Adage and Blue Ridge held 45.8 million, 6.3 million, 8.1 million and 2 million of Apple shares respectively. In the previous report, Appaloosa Management also reported a 3% decline of its share in Apple to 1.2 million. While Passport Capital dumped all its 100,642 million shares in Apple as of December 31.
Within the last three months, Apple stock has been falling more than 15%. Hedge funds reduced their stock in the company to protect them from loss as Apple's share continue sliding. The company recenly reported a mixed first-quarter report in January, with earnings beat the estimation but revenue fell short.
Meanwhile Reuters reported that Tiger Global Management reported a new position in Apple with 10.6 million shares as of December 31. While Bridgewater Associates reported increase 19% of its shares of Apple at year-end.
In order to pay for share buyback and dividends, Apple on Tuesday as New York Times reported announced to sell up to $12 billion in bonds. Sales of Apple's debt is recorded as the second-largest bond offering this year. Last month, Anheuser-Busch's issue $45.8 billion bond as the largest bond offering this year.
Apple choose to utilize the debt markets to finance its activities due to its large cast abroad. As 93% of its cash is located outside the U.S. territory, it will incur taxes to return the cash back home. Therefore, Apple planned to be more active in the debt market, both international and American to pay its capital return plan.
The company has also completed $153 billion of its $200 billion buyback and dividend program. In the bond-offering, Apple included its fixed- and floating-rate bonds of varying maturities to invest in clean technology.
As many big hedge funds including Carl Icahn reduced their shares, Apple will use debt market to fund its general corporate purposes, including debt repayment. Meanwhile Tiger Global Management and Bridgewater Associates is reported to increase their shares in Apple.
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