Carl Icahn, one of the most reputed activist investors, has always had an association with Apple. In fact, just a year back, one of the largest shareholders of the company, positioned among the top ten holders, was Carl Icahn. In the past, there have been a number of occasions on which Apple had taken open advice from this activist investor, and none of it was done secretly, but quite openly. What came as a surprise to many in that in recent times is that Carl Icahn has cut most of his shares of the company. According to reports put forward by CNBC, the shares cut down by Icahn are approximately valued at $750 million and the total number of shares which were cut down is 7 million. This report further showed that the number of shares Icahn now has amounts to around 45.7 million, as of 31st December, 2015.

Till date, there have been a number of vocal announcements by Icahn which showed that he was investing heavily in Apple and had no issues to hide the fact. On the other hand, in recent years, Apple has paid more heed to the buybacks done by shareholders and some of the related issues. Apparently, this seemed to be the main issue between top investor of Apple, Carl Icahn and the CEO of the company, Tim Cook.

Just last year, in the month of February, Carl Icahn was reported boasting in public that apple shares were actually undervalued. During that period, the share price of Apple was actually at its highest point. Moreover, Carl Icahn alone held Apple shares amounting to approximately $6.5 billion. Taking this statement a bit further, Icahn also said that this high point the company could reach gave him immense pleasure and confidence regarding the future of the company stock. He also added that the company shares should be available at as high as $216 for one share. Moreover, he stated that due to this new earned confidence, he was still the owner of such a large number of shares and not looking to sell any at that time.