Disney last week announced that it will replace Bob Chapek, its former CEO, with Bob Iger. A crazy rumor said Iger’s ultimate goal would be to sell the company, and Apple would be the perfect match. Iger called Apple to discuss a merger or purchase on his first day of work. “pure speculation.”
Information sourced from Deadline. It says the man who bought Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Fox doesn’t intend to make a deal with Apple or make any big-ticket acquisitions soon.
The publication gave some tidbits about this rumor about Apple buying Disney and how it won’t likely happen:
Apple was popularized nearly 20 years ago by Steve Jobs who served as the CEO. Iger and Jobs had an intimate business and personal relationship. In reality, though, Apple has never pursued major M&A deals, its largest being its $3 billion purchase of Beats in 2014. What’s more, most of Disney’s traditional holdings would likely be unattractive to a large-scale tech firm, and the size and complexity of any transaction would be exponentially greater than Amazon’s absorption of MGM (a deal that also sparked curiosity about Disney and Apple).
An earlier story is here BGR’Chris Smith spoke out about the difficulties of merging companies.
(…) Moreover, the regulatory landscape might make a Disney-Apple deal nearly impossible. Regulators worry more about companies such as Apple, Google and Meta (Facebook). We’ve witnessed many antitrust investigations recently, andMore will be added..
In addition to these now-discarded Apple rumors, Bob Iger said today he’s keeping the hiring freeze at the company as it’s the “wise thing to do.” He plans to address Disney’s overall “cost structure.”
As CNN Business noted, “the announcement of Iger’s return comes at a time of great difficulty and scrutiny for Disney, which faces challenges across its media empire. Its share price has been sluggish, and although its streaming business is growing, it’s losing billions of dollars.”
That said, although merging Apple’s iPhones with Frozen sounds exciting for many people, it’s not a movement we’ll see both companies doing anytime soon.