Apple: Worth $500 Billion and Mulling Dividend

Could Apple be considering a dividend? Now that Apple is valued at $500 billion, chief executive Tim Cook and the Apple board are said to be considering the idea.  

Cook said during a question-and-answer session Thursday at the company's annual shareholders' meeting that he and the board are nearing a decision on the dividend, according to CIO Today.  

The board and management are "thinking about this very deeply," Cook said. "This isn't a case where 100 percent of people are going to agree with what we do."


Cook said he wasn't supporting splitting stock, but he did note Apple's surplus of cash -- $98 billion -- was unnecessary, Seeking Alpha reported. "Frankly speaking," Cook said, "it's more than we need to run the company." 
 
Typically an annual shareholders' meeting is the place where dividends are announced. It wasn't this time, but Cook's consideration of a dividend is light years away from Apple founder Steve Jobs' cash-hoarding ways.
 
Perhaps this is Cook's way of testing the waters to see if shareholders and Wall Street would accept such a revolutionary notion from Apple (although not revolutionary for other companies). We're betting that the dividend will happen, but probably not until at least the end of the year -- after Cook celebrates his anniversary at Apple's helm.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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