“Apple is currently sitting on over $255 billion in cash, which is a record for non-financial companies. Apple’s cash has grown to such a large amount because 94% of it is being held overseas as the company awaits a tax holiday to bring it back to the US,” First Floor Finance writes for Seeking Alpha. “There is plenty of speculation about what Apple will do with the cash, but before we get to that, I want to put this number into perspective.”
What $255 Billion in Cash Means:
• Apple’s cash alone would be the 13th most valuable company in the S&P 500, trailing only Alphabe, Microsoft, Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon, Facebook, ExxonMobil, Johnson & Johnson, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, General Electric, and AT&T.
• Apple could buy every single team in the four major professional sports leagues in the US, and would still have almost $100 billion left.
• Apple’s cash is greater than the GDPs of Chile, Finland, Portugal, and Venezuela.
• Apple could pay every single person in the world about $35.”
“There are a few different opinions of what Apple should do with their cash. The most likely use of this cash with be a combination of share buybacks, increasing its dividend, and paying off some of the $75 billion in long-term debt the company has on its books,” First Floor Finance writes. “Doing those three things would certainly return the most immediate value to shareholders, but there are two other options Apple should consider. The first is investing more in its Services businesses, which includes the App Store, Apple Music, and hopefully video content at some point. The second option is making a big acquisition, preferably one that helps to expand its current Services business.”
“The combination of Apple and Disney would create the world’s first $1 trillion company and would bring together one of the world’s best technology companies with one of the world’s best entertainment companies,” First Floor Finance writes. “This new super company would own some of the most successful and recognizable brands, including: Disneyland, ESPN, iPhone, iPad, Mac Computer, Marvel, and Pixar.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in April:
We can think of worse mega acquisitions Apple could make.
With Disney, Apple would gain not only content, but tremendous leverage in many areas, including “television.” With Disney, Apple would own ESPN, for example. Not to mention ABC, A+E, Marvel, Lucasfilm, The Muppets, Pixar (Steve Jobs’ babies unite!), 30% of Hulu, and much, much more.
Spin off the theme parks or deck them out with Apple technology and use them to showcase Apple products. The sky’s the limit!
As we wrote earlier [in April] in response to reports Apple was attempting to put together a plan to sell a premium skinny bundle consisting solely of HBO, Showtime and Starz:
Yawn.
You know what would really send a message?
Buying Disney.
All that said, we’ll believe it when we get the press release.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s cash conundrum: Is buying Disney the answer? – April 13, 2017
Analyst offers six reasons why Apple may buy Disney – April 13, 2017
Apple’s premium TV plans – the hobby doomed to stay that way – April 10, 2017
A premium TV bundle could be Apple’s secret weapon – April 4, 2017
Apple wants to sell HBO, Showtime, and Starz in a single premium bundle – April 3, 2017
Google just succeeded where Apple failed – March 3, 2017
Senior Apple executives vying in confused effort for transformative Hollywood acquisition – March 3, 2017
YouTube to unveil virtual cable bundle for $30 to $40 a month – February 28, 2017
Stalled talks with Ron Howard highlight Apple’s content confusion – February 16, 2017
Apple vowed to revolutionize television; currently prepping an unremarkable 4K Apple TV instead – February 16, 2017
Apple TV: Still not ready for prime time – February 15, 2017
Apple hires Amazon’s Fire TV head to run Apple TV business – February 8, 2017
Laurene Powell Jobs cuts Disney stake in half – February 1, 2017
Why Apple should buy Disney – January 26, 2017
Apple’s new TV app shows just how painfully behind Apple is – December 14, 2016
Are you ready for 4K TV? Apple TV isn’t. – November 28, 2016
Apple has no idea what they’re doing in the TV space, and it’s embarrassing – November 3, 2016
Hulu inks deals with Fox and Disney, adding ESPN, Fox News and more to forthcoming live service – November 1, 2016
Apple’s Eddy Cue: Nope, we don’t want to be Netflix – October 20, 2016
Google signs up CBS for planned web TV service to debut in early 2017; close to deal with 21st Century Fox – October 20, 2016
Apple’s Eddy Cue: Nope, we don’t want to be Netflix – October 20, 2016
Apple’s Eddy Cue alienated cable providers and networks with an assertive negotiating style – report – July 28, 2016
Here comes á la carte programming – without Apple – July 13, 2016
Apple TV 4 is a beta product and, if you bought one, you’re an unpaid beta tester – November 5, 2015
Laurene Powell Jobs’ fortune jumps a cool $1 billion in a day as Disney soars – February 6, 2015
Disney completes Pixar acquisition; Steve Jobs now Disney’s single largest shareholder – May 5, 2006
So does this mean that Apple will finally have a mascot then? It doesn’t feel right having Mickey Mouse on the back of my iPhone. Now if bought Sega and made new consoles, I would NOT mind having Sonic the Hedgehog as ’s mascot!
Enough already with this garbage.
Never mind. I didn’t read the MDN take carefully. Now that I realize Disney owns The Muppets, I think it’s a great idea!
Seeing an Apple themed technology center at EPCOT sounds like a very seductive idea. I would love to see how EPCOT manages to incorporate Apple technology in that park.
I can just see the Geosphere decked out as an Apple icon.
No, Apple is on a mission to invest its money in Global Climate Control. We will all be seeing how much the Global Climate improves as Apple takes on huge new debts to pay for a better temperature and humidity for everyone.
Science. Skipped that class, among others, I assume. The truth is out there.
Best idea I have heard yet:
Apple could buy every single team in the four major professional sports leagues in the US, and would still have almost $100 billion left.
At the moment Apple has the focus of a housefly, flitting from one pile of crap to the next. One look at their reality tv efforts shows you they don’t need any more show biz bs to distract them. Or maybe spin off technology and put in a CEO who can manage it properly, and let Cook go party with pals in Hollywood.
Would it be impolite to trot out the old Michael Dell quote here?
Ahh, who cares…
“What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” – Michael Dell, 1997
Another clickbait article on what Apple should buy.
Wall Street likes M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) because they get to charge lots and lots of fees for Attorneys, CPAs, Banksters and others. Wall Street is the casino that holds America hostage.
There are legitimate companies that Apple could and should consider buying that relate to the existing business model, but does Apple really want to get into the Hotel, Real Estate, Motion Picture, Broadcasting, Cablecasting and IP licensing business? Not exactly sure what great benefit owning Disney World or ESPN would be to what is essentially a technology company.
I could see the argument for buying a company like Comcast (dba xFinity) or Charter Communications (dba Spectrum)- Apple could use ownership of a massive Cable/ISP to rewrite the rules of one of these companies and then spin it off into an IPO.
Charter has a Market Cap of 91.3 Billion at this writing Comcast is 196.97 Billion. Charter is mostly a pure Network Play as Comcast owns Universal, NBC and other properties.
Imagine if Apple bought Charter, turned the whole cable set up over to IPTV using an Apple TV type device and shut the traditional cable transmission down. This would re-write the business model for Cable, TV and Internet overnight. With an IPTV model Apple could offer true a la carte channel selection.
Charter would give Apple a base of 16.7 Million households. Comcast would give a base of 22.5 but cost twice as much and include the entertainment and real estate assets Universal.
Disney is neither an ISP or TV distributor (Cable or Satellite), but owns the ABC O&O TV stations group. I could see Apple buying Comcast or Charter to upend the business model of ISPs and TV and then spinning the company off later for profit, but do not see the value of Disney to Apple.
Now that’s the DavGreg I’m accustomed to.
Purchasing Disney would see Apple’s transition into SONY completed. Steve always admired SONY. These days, when you think technology, of any sort, how often do you think of SONY?
Once, when you think gaming and Playstation. Other than that?
Apple missed the Pixar boat, buying Disney is an utter waste of money.
Don’t buy Disney, Tim. Just build the greater hardware and design the best software. Can ya’, Tim? Can you you just do that?
Major acquisitions are VERY hard to pull off and make successful.
But, I also love Disney. Maybe Apple could buy 51% of Disney. Leave Bob Iger and team in place. Let Disney keep doing what they do great.
And when Apple wants to add content from ESPN, Disney, or ABC to their devices, Apple gets to dictate the terms.
If Apple bought Disney, they’d get Pixar as well. At that point, they’d have people actually in-house who need powerful, humongous workstations and servers, and therefore a reason to develop them.
By all means, Apple – buy Disney. Then watch out, world.
If Steve Jobs who owned Pixar didn’t sell to Apple the first time around it was never meant to be. Hint: Sony bought a movie studio it didn’t work it sunk the company.
Nonsense
Apple should purchase Microsoft whose OS is deeply embedded within the walls of the Pentagon. Stopping Windows development would shut down the 1%ers wars.
I don’t think it will happen. But it would be helpful to Apple’s Apple TV aspirations. It would shortcut a lot of things for them by instantly putting them into the content business beyond their crappy reality shows.
Hell no. And Apple knows better. Not gonna happen.
Apple is a computer hardware and software company. They know their expertise and they stick to it, wisely.
Let Disney stick with its expertise as well.
My perspective: I worked at Eastman Kodak when they had too much money to burn and bought companies that:
A) Had no fit with Kodak
B) Kodak had no idea what to do with their technology, thereby allowing it to rot and disappear from the market.
The above nonsense happened over and over, eating up Kodak money, time, reputation, morale.
And then Kodak went bankrupt. It was entirely avoidable. But Kodak’s management was consistently marketing driven, which is antithetical to Research and Development, a great way to kill any company. Marketing-As-Management. 🙃🤢