“Tim Cook is the apple of Goldman Sachs’ eye,” Josh Kosman reports for The New York Post. “Goldman is trying to persuade Apple to make a rival bid for Time Warner, a source with direct knowledge of the situation said.”
“‘They are freaking out trying to convince Apple to come in,’ the source said. Goldman has been left on the sidelines in advising on AT&T’s $85 billion agreement to acquire Time Warner,” Kosman reports. “In 2009, Apple hired Goldman banker Adrian Perica to head its mergers practice, and now he has his staff looking for acquisition targets, the source said.”
Kosmanz reports, “Cook’s company has expressed interest in buying Time Warner in the recent past, and there is some belief that judging from his comments this week, he will not let AT&T carry the day.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good luck with that, Goldman. Tim Cook and the BoD will do whatever they feel is in the best interest of Apple.
Regardless, an $85+ billion acquisition with upwards of 25,000 employees would be quite the project. Doesn’t seem Apple-like to us, but it depends on how valuable Cook & Co. see owning the home to be (Apple TV, HomeKit, future products), how useful Time Warner might be in helping to achieve that, how close (or far) they are to some real meaningful Apple TV content deals, and how committed they ultimately are turning this long-running hobby into something truly meaningful.
So let’s get this straight: everyone is up in arms that Apple seems stretched too thin to pay sufficient attention to the mac line to keep the pro, mini and even the laptops ahead of or even on the curve, but running TW is possibly a reasonable thing?
Tesla would be a better buy. There’s a company with ideas about the future, and (so far) working plans to get there.
They would be better off buying Netflix and signing Sports Broadcast deals.
Netflix is way over priced.
Apple buys Time Warner and keeps it as a separate division. Sells programming to others AT7T, Comcast etc. which is a money maker and now they can make a bundle for AppleTV.
NO!
Absolutely not!
They need to sort something out in terms of obtaining or producing content for AppleTV otherwise it’s always going to feel a little crippled as concerns what it could be and lack that design aesthetic Apple desires to make it easy to use and as such an advantage over the opposition. How they do that is the problem they have to solve, can’t say if this would be the right one mind.
Content is king. Google has youtube and it would probably be a good move for Apple to have some of their own content.
Google makes money from Youtube because they take user data and sell them to advertisers (‘targeted’ ads being much more lucrative than ‘blind’ ).
if apple keeps to its ‘privacy is sacred’ position it’s hard to see how Apple can make money from things like Youtube or even Search.
goldman Sachs made a lot of money brokering deals for Apple so maybe this case as well it’s self interest…
e.g:
Bloomberg
“Apple Inc. sold $17 billion of bonds in the biggest corporate offering on record… The offering, Apple’s first since 1996, was managed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. … “
Apple should buy Sony / Columbia Records / Movie Studios, Sony Computers, etc.
OR buy Disney Entertainment division / ABC & Studios / ESPN / TV channels, etc, music, symphony. ( not theme parks or movies )
Buy HBO & Netflicks.
Time Warner is HBO, and CNN amongst others.
Tesla would be a good buy for it’s battery tech.
Plus Warner Brother would be a good buy seeing that Apple could sell off parts of Warner to Disney that they don’t want.
Apple should buy something…why not a pizza company?
Hey, speaking of pizza,
What’s Hillary’s favorite pizza?
Beats me. But I hear she’s known from time to time to have some little seizures.
Ba-dum-dum.
Mom used to say sweep your iwn doorstep before sweeping others. My think is they need to fix a lot internally before biting off more. How can Tim cook manage anymore than he already has? He cannot balance now what on his apple plate. His social agenda and religious plate. So how can apple be great? Invest in the assets that exists. Make a great mac, mac pro and innovate. Aquisions only makes stockholders happy. It wont make apple any better buying time warner before they fix whats on their own doorstep.
I don’t think Apple should buy TW.
Goldman is trying to pad their pockets by driving the price up, it’s a classic ‘create a bidding war ‘ situation.
Another idea Apple is smart to say no to.
Again Goldman Sachs proves its idiocy. (<-These dolts were a prominent cause of the 2007 worldwide 'Great' recession).
Goldman Sachs is just doing God’s Work, ask Lloyd Blankfein or Hillary Clinton.
Stop frightening me! Halloween is over! 😉
I do not want to see the AT&T DeathStar over HBO, but am not sure an Apple buyout would be a good thing. HBO is one of the few things actually worth watching on TV.
Knowing Tim Cook, they would put Cueless Eddie in charge which would render it complete shit in a short time.