how can we say apple has 100bn$ cash?

[emir]

All over the news we hear Apple has 100 billion dollars of cash but how can we know that? businesweek's sources show the balance sheet of Apple and cash+cash equivalents only show almost 10 billion dollars. Can someone explain this? here is the balance sheet:

http://investing.businessweek.com/r...dataset=balanceSheet&period=A&currency=native

 

[Tinyluph]

I'm just guessing but probably because the money is offshore.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Can this from here help? It has a section about "assets", though it also lists around 10 billion USD in cash.

 

[GGJstudios]

From the Form 10-Q:

​

 

[emir]

From the Form 10-Q:

View attachment 326068​

so the 100 billion dollars in question is not cash? but all assets? i don't get it. i need a little help here. If that 100 billion is really cash, what's up with the balance sheet of business week which i gave the link of on the original post?

 

[rdowns]

Most of Apple's "cash" is list on their balance sheet as long-term investments aka, mainly t-bills which are easily converted to cash if necessary.

 

[emir]

i still don't get this. so apple doesn't have 100 billion dollars in cash?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

i still don't get this. so apple doesn't have 100 billion dollars in cash?

Do you mean in actual cash like this?

That is only 100 to 250 million USD, imagine a pile 400 to 1000 times bigger than that.

Why should Apple do that?

 

[GGJstudios]

i still don't get this. so apple doesn't have 100 billion dollars in cash?

Yes, they do. The securities listed are considered cash equivalents and can be converted to cash at any time. No major company keeps a significant amount of green cash on hand, because it wouldn't be earning interest. When a company is said to have cash on hand, it means cash equivalents, such as money market funds, T-bills, CDs, etc.

 

[rdowns]

i still don't get this. so apple doesn't have 100 billion dollars in cash?

Here's a pic of their 'cash' breakdown.

If you want to read and learn…

http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-12-23398&CIK=320193

 

[vrDrew]

Apple's "cash" is the combination of its short and long-term "marketable securities" and the actual cash balances it maintains in its various bank accounts.

At the end of the last quarter Apple had approx. $67 billion in long-term securities; $20 billion in short-term securities; and a little over $10 billion in cash in the bank. Long-Term generally means Bonds with a maturity of greater than one year: ie. A US Government bond with a maturity date sometime in 2015. Short-term securities are those with a maturity less than 12 months from now: ie. GE 90-day commercial paper.

"Marketable Securities" is generally used to refer to commercial paper or Government bonds or notes that are said to be highly "liquid" - meaning that they can quickly be sold for cash, without losing a large portion of their value in the process.

By any reasonable definition, Apple could raise $100 billion in cash in a very short period of time, by selling its long- and short-term securities.

Marketable Securities does not refer to speculative investments in privately or publicly-traded equities.