Apple to pay dividend and repurchase shares

Apple plans to initiate a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share and has already authorised a $10bn share repurchase programme.

The company plans to pay a quarterly dividend beginning sometime in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012, which begins on July 1, 2012, subject to declaration by Apple’s Board of Directors. It will be the first time that the firm has paid out a dividend to its investors since 1995.

The share repurchase programme will commence in the company’s fiscal 2013, which begins on September 30, 2012. It is expected to be executed over three years, and Apple said that its primary objective is to neutralise the impact of dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programs.

“We have used some of our cash to make great investments in our business through increased research and development, acquisitions, new retail store openings, strategic prepayments and capital expenditures in our supply chain, and building out our infrastructure. You’ll see more of all of these in the future,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

“Even with these investments, we can maintain a war chest for strategic opportunities and have plenty of cash to run our business. So we are going to initiate a dividend and share repurchase program.”

Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, added: “Combining dividends, share repurchases, and cash used to net-share-settle vesting RSUs, we anticipate utilising approximately $45bn of domestic cash in the first three years of our programmes.”