![]() ![]() Microsoft has made eight acquisitions larger than Apple’s $3 billion purchase of Beats (all prices in billions): Activision Blizzard ($69), LinkedIn ($26), Nuance ($20), Skype ($8.5), ZeniMax ($8.1), GitHub ($7.5), Nokia ($7.2), and aQuantive ($6.3). Their contrasting strategies regarding large acquisitions exemplify that. Microsoft and Apple, each forged in the image of their founders, have long been opposites in so many regards. Nor do I think Disney envisions its own future as anything but the independent company it has been ever since Walt and Roy Disney founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio 100 years ago. I just don’t think Apple has any such interest or appetite. Berkshire does, though, own 6 percent of Apple’s stock, 5 so they would, by proxy, own a sizable stake in Disney if. But Berkshire today holds no Disney stock at all, which strongly suggests Warren Buffet would have no interest in buying the whole company at its current price. Berkshire Hathaway is the only other big-enough company I can think of that might be trusted to let Disney be Disney. 3 4Īnd if Disney were to look for a buyer, I can’t think of a single big-enough-to-afford-it company other than Apple that they would want to sell to. Why drink Veuve Clicquot when you can afford Dom Perignon? If you’re going to buy, buy the best. If Apple were to buy a major entertainment/media company, they’d probably want Disney. The reason the notion of an Apple-Disney acquisition has any legs at all is that it’s not crazy. And because they prioritize quality over all else, both companies have built enormous devoted customer bases that are really more like fan bases. What each company does, they strive to do best. And there are some obvious areas where Disney’s and Apple’s cultures overlap: they are both family-friendly iconic brands with outsized cultural influence, with reputations for industry-leading design and engineering. 2ĭisney, too, has a very distinct company culture and focus. Manu Cornet’s classic 2011 comic strip illustrating tech company org charts remains apt, and is only funny because it’s accurate. Apple is not comprised of divisional fiefdoms like Microsoft, 1 which is buying Activision for $69 billion, or Amazon, which bought its way into the grocery store market by acquiring Whole Foods for $14 billion. PA Semi, which Apple acquired with relatively little fanfare for a mere $278 million in 2008, is Apple’s style of acquisition. Apple has a very distinct company culture and focus. I’m in no way arguing that Apple couldn’t afford to buy Disney, even at a generous markup, but rather that enormous industry-shuffling acquisitions like that aren’t what Apple does, nor, in my opinion, should do. ![]() Disney’s current market cap is $158 billion. At $3 billion in 2014, it remains, by far, Apple’s largest-ever acquisition. When acquisitions are noted, the company has a boilerplate response: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” They’d need a longer statement if they bought Disney.īeats, of course, was the exception to the rule. Many of these acquisitions are so quiet they get no press coverage whatsoever, which is how Apple likes it. Apple frequently acquires small companies - on average, about once per month. I do not think Apple has any interest in buying Disney. Into the content business through its Apple TV+ service. 10,Ģ019, the same day Apple officially announced that it was getting Of priceless IP and remains the most valuable brand inĪnd there has been a long-standing “special relationship” betweenĭisney and Apple: Steve Jobs served on Disney’s board of directorsįrom 2006 until his death in 2011. One that, despite the challenges of the moment, has a vault full To buy a studio, maybe it would want to buy this studio - the And while it may be very true that Apple doesn’t want There clearly is no buyer like Apple, which is sitting on $62īillion in cash and cash equivalents and has a $2.8 trillion Kim Masters and Alex Weprin, writing for The Hollywood Reporter under the headline “ A Disney Sale to Apple? Don’t Count It Out This Time”: Disney and Apple, Sitting in a Tree Wednesday, 16 August 2023 ![]()
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