Feb 7 (Reuters) - Hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital told Reuters on Thursday that he 'chatted yesterday' with Apple CEO Tim Cook who is receptive to his proposals on Apple's capital allocation strategy.

Einhorn said earlier on Thursday he suggested to Apple an initial preferred share distribution, where dividends could be funded on an ongoing basis by a relatively small percentage of the company's operating cash flow.

'Apple rejected the idea outright in September 2012,' he said, adding the company considered it but then refused to withdraw the proposal to eliminate preferred stock from its charter.

Einhorn told Reuters that his discussions last fall had been with Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer.

Einhorn said: 'When I discussed this with Tim Cook, and actually, the conversation has been going on for the last couple of weeks, he said that he wasn't familiar with my previous conversations with Peter Oppenheimer and whoever Peter Oppenheimer's advisors were. I was surprised by that.'

(Reporting By Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama) Keywords: APPLE GREENLIGHT/COOK

(jennifer.ablan@thomsonreuters.com)

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