“Apple Inc. on Wednesday added mergers and acquisitions head Adrian Perica to its executive leadership page online, a promotion that suggests the technology giant is more focused on deals,” Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg.
“Apple’s website describes Perica as the vice president of corporate development and lists him as reporting directly to Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook. That title is old, but reporting to the CEO is a move up in the company’s hierarchy,” Gurman reports. “‘Cook knows it is time to get the deal engine ready,’ said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, who has predicted that Apple will do a major media acquisition this year.”
Gurman reports, “‘They have to accelerate non-existent M&A going forward as we believe they can spend up to $100 billion on M&A over the next few years,’ Ives added.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
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Major Apple acquisition looms; ‘people will be shocked’ – April 4, 2019
I frankly think that Apple will make a cash-and-shares offer for Disney, at approximately 10% over current market cap. Disney is right now the big player in media, and would give Apple the depth, expertise, and clout in the media world that it needs for its hardware business.
I think it’s a match made… well, if not in heaven, than certainly in Toontown.
If they add Roku to the mix they will have both content AND delivery!
DoJ would likely block Roku as it is a direct competitor to Apple.
Only if they showed Amazon and Netflix and Hulu could not offer enough competition so I doubt it.
Dumb and Dumber….
Many thought they would go for Disney around or soon after the Pixar deal. Probably should have considering intervening events though I can imagine the cost now much much more than back then sadly.
I’d be shocked if it was Playboy. I would be impressed if it was Warner Brothers. I would be happy if it was Disney (followed by firing most of the executives).
Warner now belongs to AT&T.
What-a-mistaka-de-maka!
I sure wish I had a clue what company they were going after. It would be really sweet to buy some of those shares ahead of time as they’ll likely overcharge Apple by a huge margin.
I can only hope Apple knows what it is doing as I don’t know what the outcome of acquiring a major content company will do to Apple. I hope Apple remains a major tech company after the acquisition.
I’ve been harping for a while that Apple WILL buy Disney. Disney’s portfolio is too strong now to ignore. The two companies have a long standing relationship and L.P. Jobs still being the company’s single largest shareholder, etc. If Apple doesn’t buy them today, this year, next year, it will certainly likely happen in less than 5 years.
The easiest to buy would be National Amusements which controls both CBS and Viacom. The Redstone family is just about as dysfunctional as the Murdochs and the catalog is quite good.
CBS would give you the namesake network in the US, half interest in CW, a substantial chain of TV stations in the larger markets, an Australian TV network, CBSN- a profitable 24 hour streaming news network, a newsgathering outfit (CBS News) with first dibs on BBC News content in America , a premium Cable Channel (Showtime), a sports production business (CBS Sports) and cable/streaming sports channel, a large Hollywood production facility (Studio City) and New York facility (West 57th Street), a large catalog of TV series CBS and Paramount), a substantial interest (72%) in Entercom Radio. Also the Smithsonian Channel and other properties to include book publishing.
Market Cap $18.4 Billion
Viacom brings the Paramount Studios lot, a large motion picture library, MTV/VH1/BET/CMT “music” channels, Spike TV, Comedy Central and other properties.
Market Cap $11.3 Billion
So for about $27 Billion, Apple could have significant TV, Movie and Radio production capabilities, a large distribution system, Sports & News content production, a book publisher, a significant radio footprint, large NY and LA production facilities and a huge library of content.
That is a lot for not a lot of money.
If Apple does buy Disney then they will really be getting all my money, between my #WorldTourOfDisney and wanting new laptops this year.