Einhorn: My Plan is the Catalyst Apple Needs

David Einhorn has said his preferred stock recommendation to Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) can help the company boost its share price by as much as $150. Apple closed just above $446 on Thursday. While the share price rose rapidly to a record high last September, it has since declined 36 percent.

Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital is currently involved in a court case with the company to force it to stop a shareholder vote on limiting preferred stock from going ahead as scheduled on February 27. Einhorn has said his larger battle is to get Apple to share more of its $137 billion of cash holdings with investors. On Thursday, the hedge fund manager hosted a conference call to convince other Apple shareholders of his plan.

During the call, Einhorn said Apple’s strategy of stockpiling cash was flawed and “exceedingly non-innovative”. He added that his simple solution was to get the company to issue perpetual preferred shares, or iPrefs, that indefinitely yield a quarterly dividend of 50 cents per share. Shareholders would see a benefit of an additional $61 per share under this plan than with any other way of returning cash, he said…