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David Einhorn has dropped the suit filed against Apple over a proposal the company intended to bring to a vote at its shareholder meeting this past week, Bloomberg reports. The proposal included a provision that would require a common shareholder vote before Apple could issue any preferred stock, something Einhorn and his hedge fund Greenlight Capital have been seeking from Apple to unlock more of the value of Apple’s cash pile for shareholders.
A judge sided with Einhorn earlier this week, issuing a preliminary injunction to block Apple from holding its vote on the proposition at its shareholder meeting. That would seem to have been enough to satisfy Einhorn and Greenlight: with the vote off the table and the shareholder meeting out of the way for another year, Greenlight has little to gain by pursuing the lawsuit, except for creating what Apple CEO Tim Cook called a “silly sideshow” that distracts the company they hold a considerable stake in from its actual business.
Apple has said it will “thoroughly consider” Einhorn’s proposal around preferred stock, Cook has said. At the shareholder meeting on Wednesday, he reiterated both the belief that the lawsuit was a “silly sideshow, regardless of how the judge ruled,” and that the company was still “seriously considering” the issue of returning cash to shareholders, according to CNBC.
