Apple increases stock buyback, dividend

Alongside its quarterly earnings results, Apple today increased both its stock repurchase authorization and quarterly dividend, by a total of $55 billion from the original amount announced last year. The repurchase authorization has been increased to $60 billion from $10 billion. It’s “the largest single share repurchase authorization in history,” and is expected to be executed by the end of calendar 2015. Apple’s board approved a 15% increase in the stock dividend putting it at $3.05 per common share, payable on March 16, 2013. “We are very fortunate to be in a position to more than double the size of the capital return program we announced last year,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We believe so strongly that repurchasing our shares represents an attractive use of our capital that we have dedicated the vast majority of the increase in our capital return program to share repurchases.” CFO Peter Oppenheimer said “We will continue to return capital to shareholders through dividends, share repurchases, and cash used to net-share-settle vesting RSUs. We continue to generate cash in excess of our needs to operate the business, invest in our future, and maintain flexibility to take advantage of strategic opportunities.”