Apple provides how much of its cash and investments are overseas in its earnings conference calls and in its 10-Q and 10-K SEC filings. Since the company has to use US generated cash or debt for dividends and stock buybacks you can calculate how much US cash is generated in a quarter or for the year. Using the 10-K that was filed for fiscal 2017 which ended in September it looks like Apple is generating $10 billion less US cash than in previous years. (Note that I own Apple shares and have sold Put options).
By taking the amount used for dividends and stock buybacks and offsetting them by the additional debt raised and the change in the US cash balance you can determine how much US cash Apple generated. As an example for fiscal 2017:
- Paid out dividends of $12.8 billion
- Stock buybacks were $32.9 billion
- Took on additional debt of $29 billion
- US cash balance fell by $5 billion
- Which means Apple generated $11.7 billion of cash in the US
For the previous three years Apple generated $20.5, $18.1 and $22.6 billion in US cash, respectively. Interestingly the Americas grew its revenue by 12% in fiscal 2017 vs. the rest of the World only growing 3%. I’ll keep digging to see if there is a reason that this occurred and please provide any comments on why you think this could have happened.
Raised $7 billion in debt
Apple announced it would raise $7 billion in debt this week with due dates ranging from 2019 to 2047. The interest rates ranged from 1.8% on the two year notes to 3.75% for the 30 year notes. Not surprisingly Apple continues to raise debt to buy back shares. What happens with Congress and President Trump passing tax reform and how it may impact overseas cash repatriation could be critical on how much more debt Apple can raise since it had over $153 billion before this latest round.
All the US generated cash was used to cover the dividend
And even then it fell short. Apple spent $12.8 billion on its dividend in fiscal 2017 but only generated $11.7 billion of cash in the US. Hopefully it will rebound to recent years amounts otherwise it may limit how much the company can raise in the future. Not in the next one to two years but farther out.
Apple stock buyback and dividend history
Apple
