Срочно!

Apple said Monday it plans to spend about $45 billion of its $98 billion cash hoard — a record for a public company — over three years to offer a $2.65 a share quarterly dividend and launch a $10 billion share repurchase program.

The maker of iPads, iPods, and the iPhone will launch its share buyback program beginning in 2013. It is the first time the company has offered a dividend since December 1995.

Apple’s share price closed at $585.57 on Friday.

The moves had been widely anticipated, after the company announced Sunday that it would “announce the outcome of the company’s discussions concerning its cash balance” in a conference call Monday morning.

“We believe a dividend will drive an incremental $4.5 billion in stock purchases (i.e., similar to adding a new top 10 holder) from top 20 dividend mutual funds and ETFs assuming Apple is a new 2.5 percent position,” Brian Marshall of ISI wrote in a note to clients Sunday following the Apple announcement. “We believe Apple could become the highest yielding stock in our coverage universe with a 2.5 percent dividend followed by Hewlett-Packard [ HPQ 24.49 +0.09 (+0.37%) ] at 2 percent, Cisco [ CSCO 20.03 +0.12 (+0.60%) ] at 1.6 percent, IBM [ IBM 206.01 +0.01 (+0.01%) ] at 1.5 percent.”