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Carl Icahn sends Tim Cook open letter asking for Apple share buyback

Financier Carl Icahn is pressuring Apple to buy back stock for a second time.
Financier Carl Icahn is pressuring Apple to buy back stock for a second time.
(Henny Ray Abrams / Associated Press)
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Carl Icahn is at it again.

The billionaire activist investor, fresh off an EBay-PayPal spinoff victory, is trying to shake things up at Apple and wants the tech company to buy back more of its stock and boost the value of its shares.

In a very long open letter to Tim Cook on Thursday, Icahn asked the Apple chief to “meaningfully accelerate and increase the magnitude of share repurchases.”

The influential investor went on to say that to “preemptively diffuse any cynical criticism that you may encounter with respect to our request,” he promised to not tender any of his shares if Apple does agree to a larger repurchase.

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“We commit to this because we believe Apple remains dramatically undervalued,” Icahn wrote. “And we think you and the Board agree. If you did not, you would not continue to repurchase shares under the existing authorization.”

Icahn said he felt compelled to make his request because he forecasts strong earnings growth at Apple during the next few years.

“Therefore we believe Apple is dramatically undervalued in today’s market, and the more shares repurchased now, the more each remaining shareholder will benefit from that earnings growth,” he said.

Shares of Apple were up 1.4% to $102.17 at 8:20 a.m. PDT.

Icahn had hinted Wednesday that he was girding for another fight, tweeting “Tmrw we’ll be sending an open letter to @tim_cook. Believe it will be interesting.”

This isn’t the first time Icahn has set his sights on Apple.

In August 2013, he revealed he had made a big investment in Apple and called the shares undervalued.

Follow Andrea Chang on Twitter.

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