[ryandrake]

Good luck finding a guaranteed rate of return higher than the interest rate on any of your debt. Most credit cards are >10%. Even on the low end, if, say, my mortgage was 4% and I had the cash to pay it off, it would certainly make sense to do it. It would only make sense not to if I could find an investment that paid over 4% guaranteed. Such an investment does not exist, period. (If it does, please let me know and I will put all my money into it).

[kondro]

LOL… Apple does NOT pay 4% on its debt. It's effective combined interest is 2.38%.

In my naive back-of-the-envelope calculations, it would have to hold this debt in a non-tax-effective way for more than a decade to be worse off with this debt versus repatriation. An in the meantime it can use the interest it pays in the USA to offset it's US tax bill for income earned in the USA making this effectively a lot longer.

The long-term average for the S&P500 is 12.11%… not to mention the fact that Apple can probably make better use of its money by investing in itself, rather than passively on the stock market.

All round, no matter your actual moral and ethical opinions on the matter, this is the smartest financial decision Apple can make (and they probably spend tens of millions a year on advice, legals and research to prove this).

And as much as Apple goes on about them being a California company… they're mostly a multi-national with much of their money being earned and spent outside of the USA.

[ryandrake]

Right--I was just responding to the parent's post to the grandparent's comparison to personal debt.

[TheCoelacanth]

Credit cards are unsecured debt. Hence they have very high interest rates because there is a fairly high risk that the debt won't be repaid.

Mortgages are secured debt. If the debtor fails to pay back the debt, the house can be seized and sold to cover the debt. That makes it pretty low risk, but there is still some risk because house prices sometimes drop precipitously, so it might not always cover the whole loan.

Apple's debts are secured by cash sitting in a bank account. There is literally next to no risk of default. They will get an even better interest rate than someone very creditworthy will get on a mortgage.

[akvadrako]

https://www.twino.eu/en/ guarantees over 10%

But it also doesn't need to be guaranteed - companies are fine accepting some risk. So you could just buy Apple stock.

[ryandrake]

At least with personal finance, if you're comparing investing with paying off a loan, the potential gain must be risk-free in order to compare apples to apples. Paying off a 4% loan is a risk-free 4% return.