Does Microsoft really own Apple?

[applemax]

I recently bought Pirates of Silicon Valley and was shocked to see at the end that apparently M$FT owns part of Apple!?!?!?! Is this true? Or was it true at the time of filming...

Thanks

 

[emw]

MS has made investments in Apple in the past, which isn't all that surprising given that they also sell products to the Mac market. I don't know what % ownership they have at this point, but I believe it's pretty small.

 

[XNine]

I think this gets asked once a month. And no, MS was forced to buy non-voting shares of Apple stock in the late 90's for being monopolistic bastards, and then end up selling the stock off.

MS owns jack about Apple.

 

[Chundles]

MSFT currently own 0% of Apple.

 

[WildCowboy]

Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple in 1997 though the purchase of 150,000 shares of non-voting preferred stock. That stock became convertible in 2000, and by the end of 2001, Microsoft had converted all of its preferred stock into about 18 million shares of Apple common stock. All of that stock has been sold off.

Microsoft used to own a very tiny amount of Apple stock through a Private Capital Management fund which was bought into by a variety of companies of which Microsoft was one, but I think that PCM no longer has any Apple stock in the fund.

 

[jaxstate]

Do you have a link to back this claim?

MSFT currently own 0% of Apple.

 

[patrick0brien]

-jaxstate

I think Microsoft's 10-Q's can best answer this.

 

[liketom]

I think this gets asked once a month. And no, MS was forced to buy non-voting shares of Apple stock in the late 90's for being monopolistic bastards, and then end up selling the stock off.

MS owns jack about Apple.

that's just made my day monpolistic bit

 

[IJ Reilly]

Do you have a link to back this claim?

I believe this does not need to be disclosed publicly by a company, provided the holding is less than a certain percentage of the outstanding shares. WildCowboy is correct, however. The $150 million "investment" in 1997 (actually a patent dispute settlement, nothing to do with antitrust) was in non-voting shares which vested many years ago, and are generally supposed to have been cashed in. Microsoft doesn't have any influence on electing members of Apple's Board of Directors, which is the most important thing to know. The 1997 deal was set up so that they would not.