Apple to distribute dividends and execute share buyback amounting to $45 billion

In post Steve Jobs era, new Apple CEO Tim Cook has decided the time is ripe to distribute dividends and execute share buyback. Apple is now sitting on a massive $97 billion cash balance.

Quote from Apple's press release:

Subject to declaration by the Board of Directors, the Company plans to initiate a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012, which begins on July 1, 2012.

Additionally, the Company’s Board of Directors has authorized a $10 billion share repurchase program commencing in the Company’s fiscal 2013, which begins on September 30, 2012. The repurchase program is expected to be executed over three years, with the primary objective of neutralizing the impact of dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programs.

This would means Apple will be spending approximately $45 billion of its $97 billion cash reserves on dividends and share buyback in the first three years of these new programs. For your information, Apple last distributed dividends in 1995.