Judge Rules In Favor Of Greenlight Capital, Prevents Apple From Limiting Preferred Stock

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Hedge fund heavyweight David Einhorn just had a decisive victory in his crusade against Apple's limited stock options.
Hedge fund heavyweight David Einhorn just had a decisive victory in his crusade against Apple's limited stock options.

A New York judge has ruled in favor of David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital and blocked an AAPL shareholder vote that would limit Apple’s ability to give preferred stock options to investors. The ruling comes after Greenlight held a meeting yesterday with shareholders to explain the ideas behind its “iPrefs” stock proposal.

Apple shareholders were scheduled to vote on limiting preferred stock next Wednesday, but a preliminary injunction has been granted that stops the vote from taking place.

Greenlight Capital recently sued Apple for bundling three proposals in violation of the SEC, one of which related to limiting the company’s ability to issue preferred stock dividends. Greenlight essentially wants Apple to give dividends at a constant value that would end up paying more back to investors.

Apple responded with a public statement saying the company “will thoroughly evaluate Greenlight Capital’s current proposal to issue some form of preferred stock.” Tim Cook dismissed the lawsuit as a “silly slideshow,” saying, “What this proposal is about is about the rights of shareholders. I want to be very clear on this: it’s not about whether Apple returns additional cash, or how much, to shareholders. It’s not about the mechanism to return it.”

That “mechanism” will hopefully be decided at Apple’s shareholders meeting next week.

Source: Reuters

Image: Bloomberg

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