Lots of talk going around the proverbial water cooler recently, mostly about who Apple is going to buy. After all, they do have $51 billion to spend, so who’s on the list? Reuters puts out some of them:
Shares of Sony Corp rose nearly 3 percent at one point on Tuesday, but later retreated as analysts dismissed speculation that the electronics maker could be an acquisition target of Apple Inc.
Helping to spark the speculation was a Saturday report in Barron’s that said cash-rich Apple could be contemplating a big acquisition and noted speculation about Adobe, Sony and Disney as potential targets.
But even the author of the report, Eric Savitz, on Tuesday sought to clear up misconceptions about any potential combination of Apple and Sony.
He wrote in a blog post on Barron’s website, “In the piece I noted that the company could do something aggressive, like bidding for Adobe, Sony or even Disney. But that was pure speculation. Yeesh.”
Rumor brought up, then quashed. But there’s more. Talk has also brought up Facebook, and more recently, Netflix. From The Mac Observer:
Brian Marshall of Gleacher & Co. thinks that a Netflix acquisition would make sense for Apple. Mr. Marshall made the comments during an interview on CNBC where he was asked about ways Apple might spend its $51 billion cash hoard. According to the analyst, Netflix’s appeal for Apple is its large movie library.
“I do think that [a Netflix] transaction could make sense,” Mr. Marshall said. “You know, Apple wants to be the first company (in my opinion) to seamlessly integrate the home office and the living room. And what’s limiting them in terms of doing that now now is basically content and better broadband into the home.”
He added, “If you look at content, they have over 10,000 movie titles on iTunes. Netflix obviously has over 100,000 movie titles. I think that would be a pretty interesting marriage right there.”
He said that the numbers make it an easy purchase for Apple. At $10 billion, a Netflix acquisition would represent less than 20% of Apple’s cash holdings — even assuming that such a deal would be all cash — an easy buy for a company that generates more than $5 billion per quarter in cash.
Since Apple and Netflix are already working together with the AppleTV, we know at least that there’s an open line of communication. I wouldn’t have a problem with the acquisition, and I think it could be a good thing for Apple. I just hope they keep the CD sending service, because all streaming isn’t for me.
Any other thoughts on who they should buy?
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