Icahn to Apple: Buy back $150 billion - CNBC.com

Apple is missing a golden opportunity if it doesn't issue a bigger stock buyback, said billionaire investor Carl Icahn on CNBC Tuesday.

"It's a no brainer and it makes no sense for this company with their multiple being so low not to do a major major buyback. And there's another reason that I mention, that I think might go forgotten, the fact that you can borrow money so cheaply today. I don't think we are going to see this again," Icahn said on CNBC's Halftime Report. "They have a golden opportunity to go borrow money."

Icahn said in tweet on Tuesday that he discussed a $150 billion share buyback with Apple CEO Tim Cook on Monday evening, but said the two would continue the discussion at another time.

"Had a cordial dinner with Tim last night. We pushed hard for a $150 billion buyback. We decided to continue dialogue in about three weeks," Icahn said in his tweet.

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With Apple trading at about $482 per share, a repurchase of this kind would mean buying more than 300 million shares. Apple currently only has about 900 million shares outstanding, so a buyback of this size would be a reduction of more than than one-third.

In April, Apple announced that it would return as much as $100 billion to shareholders by the end of 2015, $60 billion of which would be through a share buyback program. It also raised its dividend 15 percent. By June, Apple had already purchased about $16 billion worth of its own stock.

While a $150 billion buyback program is well above the current buyback, Apple likely wouldn't have trouble funding an increased buyback.

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