Analyst floats idea of Apple buying Disney to make 'tech/media juggernaut'

A new analyst report suggests that Apple should acquire long-time media partner Disney to smooth out seasonal concerns about earnings and make a massive end-to-end media development and delivery platform — but this is not the first time this unlikely scenario has been bandied about.

In a research report provided to AppleInsider by RBC Capital markets, analyst Amit Daryanani sees a "confluence of events" involving potential cash repatriation that could end up seeing Apple buying Disney. A potential buyout would "instantly scale AAPL's services, content, and media portfolio," strengthen Apple's already iconic brand, and would leapfrog Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube's offerings in one fell swoop.

Daryanani assumes that Apple would pay about a 40 percent premium on top of Disney's current price, putting it at around $157 per share. This would tap most of Apple's $200 billion available for acquisitions, and would require a significant debt acquisition to complete.

Other benefits to Apple cited in the report are global sports rights given that Disney owns sports network ESPN, a proving ground for technologies at Disney parks like augmented reality and virtual reality, product diversification, and unspecified cost synergies. As a result, Daryanani sees Apple stock climbing nearly instantly about 25 percent after any deal with Disney.

Besides just Disney-branded properties, the company owns "Star Wars" franchise producer Lucasfilm including special effects studio Industrial Light & Magic, "Thor: Ragnarok" developer Marvel Studios, ABC television, A&E Networks, and Pixar Animation Studios, amongst others. Also included in any deal would be the several Disney tourist attractions, a giant retail and merchandising arm, and a massive patent portfolio.

Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs founded Pixar Animation Studios. Following Pixar's merger with Disney in 2006, Jobs joined the Disney board of directors. At the time of Jobs' death, his stake in Disney was said to exceed $4.6 billion.

As Apple fought to stay alive in the mid-'90s, rumors frequently circulated that Disney was examining Apple for an acquisition target. More recently, after Apple's ascension after the iPod and iPhone successes, the speculation shifted in the other direction, leading to off-and-on speculation for the last decade about Apple and Disney merging to form a company with a trillion-dollar market capitalization.

Even Daryanani sees the deal as just barely possible but still unlikely. The report cites a "greater than 0 percent" chance that Apple is considering the buy, but conversations suggest that there is far more consideration being given to an acquisition than there was six months ago.

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57 Comments

freeper

said about 7 years ago

Anti-trust regulators, both domestic and foreign, would never approve. And Sony has shown what happens to tech companies when they try to transcend tech. Not only are they running the entertainment properties that they acquired (including Columbia Pictures, RCA/BMG and other record labels etc.) into the ground, but where once they are among the biggest and most powerful tech companies in the world - more so than Samsung, Google, Apple and Amazon - now they are pretty much just the PlayStation and the #2 maker of TVs (behind Samsung). They don't even make PCs anymore, and where they had the potential to rival Samsung in the mobile device market, they so badly bungled marketing and product development efforts that now they don't even try to sell smartphones outside Japan, and it is unclear whether they still make tablets at all. Sony proves that if you try to dominate everything you become good and competitive at nothing. They are certainly a cautionary tale for Apple and all the people who claim that Apple should buy Disney or even Netflix. If you ask me, Google is another cautionary tale. Of all their efforts to expand beyond their initial search engine/web browser/email product - synergy that they did not innovate as AOL first started combining the 3 back in the early 90s - pretty much everything else they have tried their hands at since then but YouTube and Android have failed. And even those have qualifiers. Google bought an already successful YouTube only after years of trying and failing to compete with them with "Google Video". Android only succeeded because of the efforts of Samsung and the other hardware partners. That is why the other Android products where Google hasn't given manufacturers the freedom that they gave them with smartphones and tablets to control their own products so long as they retained the mandatory apps and Google branding i.e. Android Wear, Android TV etc. have failed, as has Google Fiber, Google Fi, the Nexus/Pixel programs, Google Home, Google VR, Google+ and so on. Even their Google Cloud venture, something that they should be great at, has been only a small success at best. Apple should not try to be Sony or Google.

wood1208

said about 7 years ago

This ain't going to happen. Disney is a global brand which enhances Apple's brand to keep in front of consumers with Theme park, Movies, Sports, etc but Apple is known for buying smaller niche tech companies and put it to use for better product offerings. Disney doesn't fit into Apple's investment philosophy, way expensive(DIS:$113) than in past.

randominternetperson

said about 7 years ago

freeper said:

Anti-trust regulators, both domestic and foreign, would never approve.

This would present zero anti-trust problems. Apple and Disney have virtually no overlap in their business lines. Therefore, in no market would this result in a reduction in competition. This would be like Wal-Mart buying General Motors or Google buying Boeing--a merger of two behemoths but not the combination of two competitors.
But just to be clear, this ain't going to happen.

freeper

said about 7 years ago

randominternetperson said:

freeper said:

Anti-trust regulators, both domestic and foreign, would never approve.

This would present zero anti-trust problems. Apple and Disney have virtually no overlap in their business lines. Therefore, in no market would this result in a reduction in competition. This would be like Wal-Mart buying General Motors or Google buying Boeing--a merger of two behemoths but not the combination of two competitors.
But just to be clear, this ain't going to happen.

While what you are saying is perfectly factual, the regulators have stepped in to prevent companies from getting too big before. Also, please note that I wrote "foreign and domestic." Apple and Disney are global companies, Disney even more so than Apple. So it would not just be America's anti-trust definitions they would have to clear, but those in countries that are far less pro-business and regulation-skeptical, namely the EU. Note that the U.S. government has yet to rule that Google is a monopoly, for instance, but the EU already has (Google is appealing/stalling). The EU even has made ridiculous claims of Apple "monopolizing" their own app store and tech! So I would not imagine their looking very fondly on Apple and Disney merging.

Fatman

said about 7 years ago

Probably no anti trust - just a huge price tag. The combination would be incredibly powerful. It would be great to have competitors pay Apple for content rights. Imagine 'Apple Land' as a section of Disney World or Apple product placements in the Star Wars Movies - LOL! Probably very unlikely though.