Apple Buying Disney In Landmark Merger?
Some analysts are arguing the best move for both Apple and Disney would be to merge to become a single company.
For those who love movies and television, mergers and acquisitions are usually pretty scary (and not just because American Psycho taught us to refer to them as “murders and executions”). After all, the merger between Discovery and HBO has led to the cancellation of several high-profile projects and the removal of much content from the HBO Max streaming service. However, here’s one potential merger that has us excited: MarketWatch recently reported an analysis that Apple not only could buy Disney and merge with them but that such a merger would actually make both companies that much stronger.
This information comes courtesy of a top Wall Street analyst who has crunched the numbers and come to a surprising conclusion. According to him, if Apple were to buy Disney, the result is that Apple would be worth anywhere between 15 to 25 percent more than they currently are. And you don’t have to be a hot shot analysis to understand the reason why: each company has particular strengths that could create an actual synergy when they work together.
For example, it’s obvious that Disney specializes in creating killer content. From the remake of The Little Mermaid to Marvel movies and Star Wars television shows, Disney is an industry leader when it comes to creating successful content with a broad appeal. But Disney isn’t always great at distributing that content: Disney+, their flagship streaming behemoth, actually lost $1.5 billion in last year’s final quarter, more than double their losses from the same time the year before, but the analyst thinks Apple buying Disney could right this particular ship.
How so? As a technology company, Apple has the kind of reach that Disney could only dream of, including the fact that over a quarter of the entire planet uses Apple products. And while the streaming service Apple TV+ has less than half the subscribers that Disney+ does (and also loses about one billion dollars per year), it has been gaining a lot of critical momentum from shows like Ted Lasso, and Disney+ doesn’t generate buzz with much these days outside of new seasons of The Mandalorian.
In short, by merging together, Apple and Disney could be stronger than ever, pooling their best content into one streaming service that could thrive even as streaming rivals such as Netflix and HBO Max continue to lose both subscribers and content. Such a merger would bring fans of both companies under one streaming banner, and the strong install base of Apple technology could help the new company to smoothly distribute its collective content. And if you’re shaking your head right now over how unlikely all of this sounds, it’s worth noting that such a merger already came insanely close to happening in the past.
He’s returned now to help correct the course for Disney, but when Bob Iger first served as CEO for the House of Mouse, he had a close friendship with Apple guru Steve Jobs, which may have helped Disney’s decision to buy Pixar for $100 billion. And after Jobs passed away, Iger later hinted that if not for his friend’s death in 2011, the two companies would have seriously considered merging together. Now that Iger is back in charge and his company is fighting to gain back the prestige it once had, it seems that Apple merging with Disney is likelier now than it ever was before.
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