How Could Apple’s Cash Repatriation Benefit Stakeholders?

Apple (AAPL) has agreed to reinvest $350 billion in the United States (SPY) over the next five years. The announcement came shortly after it unveiled its plan to repatriate part of its overseas cash holdings. That investment is expected to create 20,000 jobs in addition to a new Apple campus. Apple is expected to pay $38 billion in taxes on the repatriated funds.

Apple has overseas cash holdings of $252.3 billion.

Venture capital firm Loup Ventures expects Apple to announce a capital return of $125 billion–$150 billion over the next three years. Between fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2017, Apple has returned $234 billion to shareholders from its $300 billion ongoing capital return program that’s expected to end in March 2019.

In fiscal 4Q17, Apple paid $3.5 billion to shareholders in dividends, and share repurchases totaled $11 billion. Apple returned $34.6 billion to shareholders in fiscal 2013, $57.3 billion in fiscal 2014, $49.1 billion in fiscal 2015, and $42.8 billion in fiscal 2016. In fiscal 2017, Apple returned $47.7 billion to shareholders, a year-over-year rise of 11.4%.

Apple has a dividend yield of 1.4% or an annualized payout of $2.52 per share. Peers Western Digital (WDC), Seagate Technology (STX), and HP (HPQ) have dividend yields of 2.3%, 4.8%, and 2.4%, respectively.