Okay, a Barrons columnist raises the possibility, could Apple be
preparing to acquire Disney? Is Dis-Apple not far off? It could be - Jobs is certainly ambitious enough to want even more corporate clout. He got a seat on the board of Disney and 7% of the company's stock. And if this deal were to come to pass, it would fulfill old rumor that swirled around about a decade ago, except Apple would be buying the beleaguered Disney, not vice-versa. It would give Apple proprietary entertainment content for its most important asset, its burgeoning media platform. It looks like a lot of points favor such a deal.
On the other hand, Apple's only got $10B more in market cap and is actually a bit smaller in enterprise value than Disney, partially because Disney also has $10B in debt. It seems that would make this deal a merger rather than an acquisition, and that would be hard to pull off without granting some control over the new company to Disney's executives. In addition, it would make the company a lot bulkier and possibly lead to an AOL-Time Warner class debacle. It's a thought-provoking story, and I'm not currently convinced one way or the other about the probability of such a thing coming to pass.
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