Apple Growing Cash Stash Spurs Talk of Huge Acquisition

As Apple’s stash of cash grows, so does the possibility that the world’s most valuable company will use some of the money for a huge acquisition that would expand its empire beyond iPhones and other gadgets.

The company currently holds more than a quarter-trillion dollars it could use to go shopping. So far, the guessing game has primarily focused on possible targets such as Netflix and Tesla Motors. Either deal could make sense, given Apple’s long-running interest in providing a TV service to consumers and its more recent work on self-driving cars.

But in recent months the takeover talk has swirled around whether Apple might do something even more dramatic by making a bid for Walt Disney Co.

THE MOUSE AND THE APPLE

Such a combination would create the world’s first company worth $1 trillion. Beyond that, an Apple-Disney marriage would unite some of the world’s most successful brands in technology and entertainment - a list that includes the iPhone, iPad, Mac computer, Mickey Mouse, Disneyland, ESPN, Lucasfilm, Pixar and Marvel.

“If there’s a deal out there that would strike fear in the hearts of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, this could be it,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani wrote in a recent research report assessing the logic of an AppleDisney combination.