In a note to clients — as reported by “Barron’s” (http://macte.ch/MzvRK) — Credit Suisse analyst Kulbinder Garcha says he’s raised his Apple stock price target from US$550 to $600, saying his “deep dive” into Apple’s free cash flow could allow for $62 billion in “excess cash” onshore (as opposed to cash held overseas) over the next four years, providing for — if Apple took that route — a dividend and buybacks.
“This is sufficient to fund a dividend of greater than $10 per share or a 2.1% yield (in line with the S&P) as well as leave $22.5 billion for cumulative buybacks over 2012-2015 on a sustainable basis,” says Garcha.
“Barron’s” says he uses a “payout ratio” of 20% for a theoretical dividend, which is half the S&P long-term average. A 2.1% dividend yield would be much higher than the 0.6% average yield of tech companies, the article adds.
“Furthermore, our analysis is conservative as it assumes no further major product introductions, discounts offshore cash completely for distribution purposes (amounting to as much as $186 per share by 2015), and lower FCF conversion,” says Garcha.