In a not-so-shocking development, famous investor Warren Buffett thinks that Apple should ignore the advice of fellow famous investor Carl Icahn. Barron’s points out that Buffett appeared on CNBC on Wednesday and gave a vote of support to Apple’s current strategy and said the company shouldn’t feel pressured to be more aggressive in its stock buyback program than it’s already been.
“I think the Apple management and directors have done a pretty darned good job of running the company, and so my vote would be with them,” Buffett explained. “I do not think that companies should be run primarily to please Wall Street, and largely shareholders who are going to sell. I believe in running Berkshire for the shareholders who are going to stay, and not the ones who are going to leave.”
While big stock buybacks usually make for happy investors, it’s questionable whether they’re at all good for a company’s long-term health. One of the reasons cited for BlackBerry’s decline, for instance, is that it spent large sums of money on share buybacks aimed at pleasing investors while ignoring urgent needs such as research and development.
