From “Apple Acquires Apple In Historic $3 Trillion Deal” posted Wednesday on The Onion:
CUPERTINO, CA—Sending shock waves through Wall Street with the once-in-a-generation acquisition, Apple revealed Wednesday that it had purchased tech giant Apple in a historic $3 trillion deal. “We’ve been fans of what Apple has been doing for quite some time, and we think Apple’s values and mission really align with our own,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said at a press conference concerning the landmark transaction, in which he stressed that despite the large price tag, he had been convinced of the deal’s prudence during several reassuring conversations with Apple CEO Tim Cook. “I’m absolutely sure that Apple’s devotion to smartphones and wearables will really make this a very simpatico relationship. Frankly, we don’t know who’s benefiting more from this deal.” At press time, Tim Cook had thanked investors and briefly left the microphone to allow Apple CEO Tim Cook to say a few words about the sale.
My take: Could have been funnier. Apple, in fact, is buying Apple, just not in one fell swoop.
I suspect that, if Apple were to become really serious about going private, they’d probably end share splitting. But they don’t, IMHO, because they want to encourage the less affluent of their employees to buy AAPL. Employees can buy at very good prices anyway – one of the major perks of being an Apple employee.
“Apple isn’t going private.” Which I went to great pains to make clear. My comment was directed to the fantasy story where Apple buys itself.
According to an unnamed marketing source familiar with the program but not authorized to speak on the matter:
“It really is a way to reward our best customers and users in a very tangible way. Investing in Apple products and AAPL stock goes hand in hand like AirPods Pro’s in your ears. Considering the $365B gross revenue in FY2021, we would have issued close to 360M shares, that seems like a lot but we repurchased 656+M shares in 2021 so we have plenty of room to do both. It’s the best way to not only reward our customers but to give them a way to appreciate (pun intended) investing in AAPL too. We hope they will hold them as long as our products.”
Details for a similar program for new Apple users using a non-Apple payment system are still being worked out. It might take awhile.