Steve Jobs Confirms Sale Of Apple Holding

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computer - and now unofficial leader of the struggling personal computer industry pioneer - sold all but one of his Apple shares in June.

The sale, revealed yesterday, came just two months before last week's unveiling of the surprise alliance between Apple and Microsoft and the boardroom shake-out that have boosted Apple's share price.

Jobs sold the 1.5 million shares he received as part of the $424 million

Apple paid him in December for NeXt Software, for about $22 million, or $15 a share. Jobs formed NeXt, a computer company that attracted world-wide attention but few customers, when he was ousted from Apple in a boardroom battle in 1985.

 

Following last week's announcement of the Microsoft alliance, Apple's shares peaked at $30 on Thursday. Yesterday, the stock was trading at about $24.

"I pretty much had given up hope that the Apple board was going to do anything," Jobs said in an interview published by Time magazine. "I don't think the stock was going up."

However, in July Apple's board forced out Gil Amelio, the chairman and chief executive, apparently raising Jobs' optimism about the outlook for the company.

Jobs went on to seal an agreement with Microsoft - which has traditionally been seen as the enemy by Apple's fiercely loyal customers. As part of the deal the software company invested $150 million in Apple shares.

Jobs - who was last week named a member of the Apple board along with others including his friend Larry Ellison, the head of Oracle - now holds a single share of Apple stock as a symbolic gesture. "If that upsets employees, I'm perfectly happy to go home to Pixar," he told the magazine, referring to the film animation company of which he is chief executive and which he nurtured with 10 years of personal investments before its public stock offering last year.

Pixar created the hit film Toy Story, the world's first computer animated feature film.

Jobs' comments confirm widespread speculation in the industry that he had sold his Apple stock. The episode also demonstrates that his new-found faith in Apple's future is very recent. Jobs's personal holdings of Apple shares may be set to increase.

As a board member, he will receive stock options in lieu of cash payments. Separately, Jobs last week shifted Apple's $60 million US advertising account to TBWA Chiat/Day.

The agency had previously worked for Apple in the mid-1980s when it created the Orwellian 1984 television spot that was named the commercial of the decade for the 1980s.