Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Banks might be TBTF but they aren' large enough to help Apple go private

Shareholders are looking for dividends all over the place....the big institutional holders aren't interested in retained earnings and long term strategies.  So many companies think about going private so they don't have to deal with shareholders.

So here is the problem:
 
After today's share price decline Apple's market capitalization is $378.25 billion. Figure a very large aquisition premium of 50% and say you'd need a $567.38 billion loan to take the company private. Junk bond yields hit 5.5 percent this wake, meaning the company would need to generate $31 billion a year in nominal earnings to make the interest payments on the loan. Apple's Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation and Amortization was $59 billion last year—more than enough to make the payments. So if Apple's managers are confident in the company's ability to maintain its 2012 level of earnings into the future they'd be way better off under a management buyout that took the company private than they are as employees of disgruntled shareholders. The problem here is that in inflation-adjusted terms the largest leveraged buyout in history was KKR's $55.38 billion aquisition of RJR Nabisco back in 1989 (that was $31.1 billion 1989 dollars). Could Apple tap its ~$140 billion in cash reserves to cut down on its borrowing needs and make the scenario more realistic? It sure could. But the problem is that a $512 billion loan isn't really any more realistic than a $567.38 billion loan. It's just way too much money. They say some banks are too big to fail, but Apple is too big to buy.

Go to the link below for the rest of the story.

Taking Apple private: Makes sense but nobody has the money.

1 comment:

  1. I think this article shows how financial unstable the banking system is. To think that Apple could easily pay back the loan within a number of years and is still unable to be granted the loan is ridiculous. This shows that the banks are still in financial troubles, not being able to loan large sums of money that will guarantee a return plus interest.

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