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A friend of mine was intering at Apple this summer and during the last week he went to a talk regarding this topic. The rational is that they've always needed a lot of cash on hand because Apple takes a lot big risks with its products and that lot of the cash is acquired overseas so its expensive to bring it back to the US. Just some food for thought.

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you got this info from an intern who got this information from a talk from some guy other than the CEO/CFO?

> you got this info from an intern who got this information from a talk from some guy other than the CEO/CFO?

The way he "sourced" this information might be questionable, but most of it is indeed true. Apple do have large cash reserves overseas[1], and they have inferred (if not directly said) in earnings calls that their large cash hoard gives them the ability to be agile when it comes to manufacturing.

[1] In fact, they are petitioning the US—along with many other large corporations—to allow them tax breaks so they can bring their earnings back into the country without paying significant amounts in tax.

I'm pretty sure it was Tim Cook who gave the talk but because I don't remember exactly, I didn't cite.

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