Apple, which ended 2011 with almost $100 billion in cash, has announced plans to spend almost half of that money. Shareholders will receive a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share during the fourth quarter of its 2012 financial year - and the company also plans to buy back around $10 billion of shares in the 2013 financial year, which begins on 30th September 2012.
The repurchase program is expected to take place over three years. The combination of dividends and share repurchases is expected to account for around $45 billion.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said “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. 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.”