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By Elizabeth Dilts and Stephen Nellis
<p class = "canvas-atom-canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc
Disagreement arose after Rod Hall, a Goldman Sachs analyst, criticized Apple's accounting methods for the tech giant's new TV + product, claiming in a research report that the result could be lower margins. and gross profits.
In response, Apple said that it "does not expect that the introduction of Apple TV +, including the accounting treatment of the service, has a significant impact on our results financial ".
A spokeswoman for Goldman declined to comment or make the analyst available for an interview. Apple also declined to comment on the Goldman relationship beyond its comment on the rating.
While the research departments of the major Wall Street banks have Chinese walls separating them from other functions, the rare public dispute is a delicate moment between the two companies.
Goldman Sachs has taken out more bond issues for Apple in the last ten years than any other investment bank, for an amount of about $ 44 billion, according to the provider of Refinitiv financial data.
Goldman Sachs also advised Apple in mergers and acquisitions just two months ago, allowing it to sign a $ 1 billion deal to acquire most of the smartphone modems market. 39, Intel, according to Refinitiv.
And last month, both partners collaborated to launch the first credit card of both companies, the Apple Card.
Each bank officially separates its equity research and investment banking divisions because of the laws passed in the early 2000s to protect the independence of stock analysts of investment bankers, who often cover the same companies. with different goals.
Corporate clients generally respect the independence of the research division. When they do not do it, it attracts a lot of attention.
In May last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk refused to answer analysts' questions about the company's capital requirements, calling the issues "boring" and "not cool" when of a conference call to discuss Tesla's performance. He later directly criticized several analysts for negative calls.
At the beginning of its fiscal year, Apple changed the way in which the value and cost of free services – such as Apple Maps – were accounted for and transferred to its service segment. Previously, this was accounted for in individual products.
In his note, Goldman's Hall said that Apple would likely treat subscriptions to TV + in the same way, counting it as a set of discounted free services associated with a hardware purchase. According to Hall, this would mean lower average selling prices for iPhones and other Apple devices, but faster growth in the company's service segment.
Many Apple investors have focused on the growth of the service sector because of the stagnation of the global smartphone market. The Apple stock has risen this year despite drops from one year to the other of iPhone sales in the last two quarters.
(Reportage by Elizabeth Dilts in New York and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco, additional report by Greg Roumeliotis in New York, edited by Daniel Wallis)
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