Here’s How Apple’s Well-Behaved Meeting Went Down

The continued sell-off in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) over the last few months may tell a different story, but the company’s investors appeared amenable to most management decisions during its annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday. While the company did not announce any specific decisions related to capital allocation and other itchy issues of the last few days, chief executive did Tim Cook did repeat his assertion that the board was in the process of announcing a change. Apparently that was enough for shareholders.

“I strongly believe it was a silly sideshow, regardless of how the judge ruled,” Cook said, referring to the court case the company lost to Greenlight Capital regarding a vote on preferred stock. Apple was forced to take the proposal off its meeting proxy. “I don’t think the issue of returning cash to shareholders is silly – we’re seriously considering it,” Cook added. The chief executive was answering the only question raised about Apple’s cash holdings at the meeting.

The iPhone maker currently has more than $137 billion in excess cash, and through the lawsuit and a public discussion, Greenlight’s David Einhorn has started the conversation for Apple to return some of those funds to investors. The larger shareholding body of the company may want the same, but did not express that wish on Wednesday…