Apple Announces Plans To Spend $100 Billion Hoard

Apple announced Monday that it plans to spend nearly half of its $100 billion cash hoard to pay a dividend to investors and buy back shares of the company.

The company’s quarterly dividend, its first since 1995, would be $2.65 per share and begin “sometime in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012, which begins on July 1, 2012,” according to Apple’s press release. Apple has also allocated $10 billion to spend on repurchasing shares of the company, which will begin later this fall.

“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,” Apple stated in its press release.

The dividend and share repurchase program will together cost Apple $45 billion that will be spent over the next three years.

During Apple’s most recent earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted that the company was weighing ways it might allocate its hoard of cash.

 “We are actively discussing uses of our cash balance and don’t have anything specific to announce today,” Cook said at the time. “We continue to be very disciplined with our cash and are not letting it burn a hole in our pockets.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer are holding a press conference on Monday morning at 9AM ET to discuss the company’s plans for its cash holdings. It can be followed live here.

Few analysts anticipated Apple would use its cash for large acquisitions. As Bloomberg Businessweek’s Arik Hesseldahl observed, “When Apple makes acquisitions, they tend to be focused on small companies that can be integrated into projects that are already developing internally.”