World of Apple

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple’s Former Chief Financial Office Fred Anderson has settled with the SEC on allegations that he backdated stock options while at the company.

The Journal cites unnamed sources in saying that Anderson agreed to the fine of $150,000 and to repay options gains of about $3.5 million.

The Journal also corroborated a report that the SEC is expected to pursue a civil lawsuit against Nancy Heinen. Heinen is accused of self-dealing on a January 2001 option grant, as well as her involvement with a grant of 7.5 million options awarded to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. These are reportedly backdated through falsified minutes of board meetings.

The paper notes that Heinen is expected to content the charges.

Mercury News has run a story based on investigations they have made into the Apple Stock Options probe. Their investigation shows that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is unlikely to face any criminal charges related to the stock option backdating investigation.

Despite Apple’s disclosure that Jobs approved widespread backdating at Apple, there is no evidence he directed the backdating of his own grant or covered it up afterward, based on a review of regulatory filings and interviews with lawyers intimately familiar with the grant who asked not to be identified. the news outlet wrote.

The article also looks into great detail exactly what seems to have occurred within Apple.

It all begins with a meeting held on the 29th August, 2001 where the board has discussed granting Steve Jobs 7.5 million shares, the discussions never completed within the meeting and negotiations continued outside of the meetings confines. Thus delaying the finalisation of the stock options. The options were finalised in December but they were backdated to October 2001, minutes of meetings were also falsified.

The article also notes that the backdating of options is not necessarily illegal if approved by the board and the investigations are most likely looking to why minutes of meetings were falsified.

Apple has been fined $43,200 by the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District for an air quality violation. The violation occurred at Apple’s Elk Grove facility in April of 2006.

“When a business neglects to observe air quality regulations the health of our citizens is jeopardized,” district executive director Larry Greene said.

It is reported that the violation occurred over several days when Apple operated an emergency standby generator outside of a maintenance or emergency period.

Apple’s Elk Grove facility was originally built as a one-time manufacturing plant to help with demand for Bondi Blue iMacs and Power Mac computers, when demand was replenished at the Taiwan factory the Elk Grove facility was turned into a general purpose facility dealing with shipping, storing, sorting, returns and other tasks.

Apple today filed a proxy statement with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), the proxy contained information referring to the payment of top Apple execs.

The statement revealed that Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Office, Peter Oppenheimer gained $56 million from exercised options in 2006, Oppenheimer also received a $615,000 salary, a $450,000 bonus and restricted stock valued at $14 million.

Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook also received restricted stock valued at $22 million, a salary of $697,000 and a $525,000 bonus.

The report also stated that Chief Executive Office, Steve Jobs received the majority of his compensation through an equity grant and isn’t eligible for a bonus.

Jobs received a salary of $1 from the company as he did in 2004 and 2005.

LoopRumors.com reports that Apple is in serious discussions concerning another stock split.

At a recent Morgan Stanley Technology Conference, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer was questioned about a future stock split and at the time stated “[I don’t] have anything to announce at this time.”

World of Apple originally predicted a possible stock split back in January 2007.

A two-for-one stock split halves the price of the shares on the market, allowing for larger, cheaper purchases and usually causes a buying rush on the markets.

Apple stock last split in February 2005, the split price was $89.62 down to $44.68.

Ahead of the bell on Monday Jesse Tortora upgraded Apple Inc., stating earlier than expected launches of both Leopard and Adobe CS3.

Tortora boosted Apple from “Neutral Weight” to “Overweight” also raised his price target to $105 from $100. The analyst believes that Creative Suite 3 and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will be released simultaneously at the end of March.

“We think this powerful one-two punch makes a great deal of sense, as it will likely unleash a flood of pent-up demand for both companies’ products,” wrote Tortora.

Pacific Crest Securities reported on Thursday that Apple’s Mac computers saw year-over-year growth in excess of 100 percent during January 2007.

In a research note the company cited NPD market research which indicated that year-over-year growth in Mac unit sales increased to 101-percent in January up from 55 percent in December.

Also mentioned in the note is that Mac notebook grew 194-percent year-over-year in January.

American stocks have plummeted to their worst one-day performance since the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001. The Dow Jones lost 200 points in just one-minute at around 3pm today.

The drops come as an aftermath of drops in the Chinese economy with the Shanghai sliding 9%, during Tuesday the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 415 points (3.35%) to 12,216 ,the NASDAQ fell 96 points (3.9%) to 2,407 and the S&P 500 Index dropped 50 points (3.5%) to 1,399.

Apple Inc. also fell on news that its Apple TV product would be delayed until mid-March.

iTunes 7.0.2 on Vista

Apple has published a guide as well as tool to aid in the installation of iTunes on Microsoft Windows Vista. The guide encourages users to wait “a few weeks” until the next version of iTunes becomes available.

Apple lists some of the following as known issues with iTunes on Vista:

• iTunes Store purchases may not play when upgrading to Windows Vista from Windows 2000 or XP.
• iPod models with the “Enable Disk Use” option turned off may be unable to update or restore iPod software, and make changes to iPod settings.
• iPod models configured to Auto Sync and have the “Enable Disk Use” option turned off may require being ejected and reconnected to resync.
• Ejecting an iPod from the Windows System Tray using the “Safely Remove Hardware” feature may corrupt your iPod. To always safely eject an iPod, choose Eject iPod from the Controls menu within iTunes.
• Cover Flow animation may be slower than expected.
• Contacts and calendars will not sync with iPod.

The iTunes Repair Tool for Vista repairs permissions for important files required by iTunes.

Disney Sells 1.3 Million Movies

The Financial Times reports that Disney has sold over 1.3 million movies on the iTunes Store in the past 3 months.

It is widely expected that other studios will begin adding movies to the iTunes Store in the near future. Paramount Studios was the second studio to add movies to the Store.

Apple Receives Requests for Documents

Apple confirmed on Friday that it has received requests from the U.S. Government for documents and additional information on its past stock-options practices.

Apple said it will fully co-operate, adding “Resolution of these matters will be time-consuming, expensive, and will distract management from the conduct of the company’s business.”

Following yesterdays financial results the market has reacted badly, to less than expected Mac shipments. But almost every analyst has raised their price targets.

During Apple’s first fiscal quarter of 2007 the company shipped 1,606,000 Macs, around 300,000 less then expected by some analysts.

Also a concern to investors and analysts was the company’s guidance for its second fiscal quarter. The company predicted between 54 and 56 cents per-share earnings on revenue of $4.8 billion to $4.9 billion.

The following firms have adjusted their price target on Apple:

• American Technology Research - $99 to $115 - Buy rating
• Goldman Sachs - $102 to $110
• Soleil - $100 to $115
• Bear Stearns - $125 to $130
• Prudential - $90 to $100
• PiperJaffray - $99 to $124
• UBS - $99 to $124
• Citigroup - $98 to $105
• ThinkEquity - $110 to $120