Apple To Hold Annual Shareholders Meeting Friday: Munster Highlights China Audit Proposal And Poses Key Question For Management

Apple Inc.’s AAPL annual shareholder meeting is scheduled to be held virtually on Friday at 12 p.m. EST. Noted Apple analyst and Deepwater Asset Management Managing Partner Gene Munster weighed in on his expectations from the annual event.

9 Proposals Up For Vote: Munster expects all nine proposals that would come up for voting to go through. Four of those were proposed by the management and the remaining five by shareholders.

See Also: Everything You Need To Know About Apple Stock

The proposals put forward by the company include the re-election of its current slate of directors, the reappointment of Ernst & Young as the company’s accounting firm, approving executive compensation and the frequency of say on pay votes, Munster noted.

Among the shareholder proposals are those on civil rights and non-discrimination audit, communist China audit, board policy, racial and gender pay gaps and shareholder proxy access amendments, he added.

“The only proposal that jumped out to me was #6 related to auditing Apple’s activity in China, which speaks to investors’ continued geopolitical concern,” Munster said. If this proposal goes through, the company may have to report to shareholders annually about the nature and extent to which corporate operations depend on, and are vulnerable to Communist China, he said.

2 Missing Things & 1 Question From Munster: The venture capitalist said going over recent analyst and investor commentaries, he felt the strength of product demand and favorable economics against the backdrop of a tough macro has been missed by all.

They also failed to capture Apple’s wide diversity across product lines, sectors, geographies and currencies that would reassure the customers of Apple possessing the safety of a consumer staples company, he added.

Munster also said he would like to know whether an Apple Car would at all launch. "An Apple-made car will singlehandedly solve their growth challenge," he added.

Despite the December quarter revenue miss, Munster said he is impressed with the two billion active devices base, which represented an 8% year-over-year growth. The company’s financial strength is also often overlooked, he said, adding that the company reported about $125 billion in EBITA in 2022 and returned $90 billion to $100 billion to shareholders annually.

Apple stock is trading essentially in line with consumer staple companies despite the tech giant offering upside potential in the form of optionality around wearables, AR, metaverse and automotive, the fund manager noted. He, therefore, thinks Apple deserved a higher valuation.

Price Action: In premarket trading on Friday, Apple shares were trading down 0.33%, at $150.10, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Read Next: Siri Catching Up? Apple Could Revamp HomePod With Screen And Challenge Amazon Echo's Dominance, Says Analyst