The Tame Apple Press has teamed up with Apple shareholder Carl Ichan to see if they can talk up the price of Jobs’ Mob shares.
Icahn who owns pots of Apple shares thinks that they should be making him pots more cash – and what better way to do that than claim that they are undervalued.
Of course a shareholder thinking he should get more money for his stash is not news, but the Tame Apple Press seems to have decided to give him a leg up while promoting the value of their favourite toymaker.
Reuters, which is set to eclipse the New York Times as Apple’s favourite Public Relations expert, actually ran a story this morning where Ichan claimed that the iPhone maker’s stock should be trading at $216, far above its record high of $124.92 yesterday.
“At $216 per share, Apple – already the world’s most valuable company – would be worth about $1.3 trillion, or about the size of South Korea’s gross domestic product,” Reuters’ breathlessly said.
The company is valued at just over $700 billion currently.
Icahn said Apple should be trading at 20 times earnings per share, which taken together with net cash of $22 per share works out to $216 per share. He didn’t say why he thought that, other than the fact that if he can convince enough thicko’s out there he is right, the share price will go up and he will be laughing all the way to the bank.
He added that if Apple introduces a TV in FY 2016 or FY 2017, we believe this “20X multiple is conservative.” Apple TV, the Tame Apple Press had not heard that one. It is also unlikely to be a big money spinner. The TV market is down the loo at the moment and there are plenty of nice looking Tellies out there sitting on shelves. Jobs Mob is also yet to come up with a future proof idea since its Tablet fad started to die out.
To be fair Icahn, who is Apple’s top 10 investors, does not only think he can convince people that the shares are worth more. He thinks Apple should buy back more shares and raise its dividend.
Apple had cash reserves of about $178 billion as of December 27 and said last April it would return more than $130 billion to shareholders by the end of 2015.
Still Ichan’s alliance with the Tame Apple Press did make him a little richer. Apple shares closed 2.3 percent higher at $124.88.
