And the cash piles must be set against the debts, some of which have been accumulated to fund share buybacks.
"It's a very odd ruling in part because even if dividends and share buybacks are going up, a shareholder still has the right to increase in the amounts of capital distributed".
We don't need food stamps, and we definitely don't want buybacks [in which the company buys its own shares to benefit shareholders]." Alvarez, who has worked at McDonald's for five years, said she is paid so little that she needs food stamps and Medicaid to care for her three-year-old son, Manny.
Although they have shovelled billions of dollars back to shareholders, in the form of share buybacks and generous dividends, they have not succeeded in buying the love of Wall Street, which remains gloomy about the industry's capacity to innovate and worries about possible price-controls on pills.
Company bosses made their bondholders happy by paying down debt in the early 2000s; now they have switched to stroke-the-shareholder mode with big share buybacks and special dividends.
Driven by the conviction that options cement incentives for employees to perform well and that buybacks represent a tax-efficient way of returning capital to shareholders, the combination has provided many firms, particularly in the United States, with the financial equivalent of a home run.Options have certainly become ubiquitous.
The de-leveraging of the past three years as companies cut costs, restored profits and paid down debt may have drawn to a close in Europe, and in America it has given way to a mild net increase in borrowing to finance more capital spending and share buybacks.
Ironically, the net supply of new equity in America has actually shrunk recently, thanks mainly to share buybacks by companies.Elsewhere equity supply has steadily increased.
After he wrote an open letter to Spreadtrum, a semiconductor company, questioning sales figures, management announced a dividend and share buybacks, which gave succour to anxious investors.Competition is also a threat.
Often with relatively small ownership stakes, the fund calls for share buybacks financed with debt, management changes or an outright sale.
Instead, Mr Cook and the company's board will probably increase somewhat the level of dividends and buybacks it has already announced, while resisting calls to turn the company into one big iCash dispenser.
