Replies to post #14524 on Apple Inc (AAPL)

[langostino]

dilleet - that's a common misperception

Once a company is public and provided there is greater demand (interested buyers) than supply (sellers looking to liquidate), there is literally no value one way or the other of who owns the shares. Apple didn't provide a bit of benefit to AKAM by holding less than 5% of their float.

And once the capitalization of the IPO has happened, there is no additive value to a strategic partnership of Apple holding a bunch of stock certificates. To the contrary, once the working capital has been raised in the IPO, the company is benefitted only by additional cash. Ironically, as I mentioned before, Apple was in a perfect position to further the strategic partnership by chunking in additional cash ... as a customer -- fueled by sale of those certificates. That would have meant no loss of working capital to AKAM, and lots of new revenues.

[kstar]

Dilleet:

OK, if we are going to change history, I would propose something like this:

1) Apple sells its AKAM for a big profit;
2) Invests Lango's suggested $100M back into AKAM;
3) Apple gets some number of preferred shares.

It does seem like some amount of ownership in some form would be beneficial for Apple in that example.

FWIW, today about 13% of AKAM is held by insiders. It would seem that some other company owning 5% or 10% equity in preferred shares would offer some benefits, eh?

I have not studied the AKAM/AAPL relationship lately, but I assume AKAM is still actively involved in AAPL? I think I once wrote that Apple should have bought AKAM outright; then Apple could have built out a VPN for Mac folks and QT users thus insuring a seamless delivery system from the POP to the desktop.

I had a lot more ideas before I got old, married and had a kid.

BR,

Kurt