Apple and Disney had conversations about merging, says Bob Iger

Disney’s former CEO Bob Iger is the subject of a new profile at Financial Times, in which he shares new quotes about the long-discussed idea of Apple and Disney merging. Here’s what he said.

Bob Iger explains why Apple-Disney merger conversations didn’t move forward

Now that Disney’s twice-CEO Bob Iger has officially wrapped his time at the company, he’s ready to publicly reflect on his legacy.

In a wide-ranging new piece at Financial Times, Iger speaks about a variety of issues related to his Disney tenure. One topic he covers is acquisitions and mergers.

After mentioning Disney’s highly successful acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm, and more controversial 21st Century Fox deal, the FT piece mentions Iger’s interest in tech.

A near-acquisition of Twitter fell apart when Iger got cold feet over the potential distraction it could be for the company. However, there’s one other tech deal he clearly hoped to make. Daniel Thomas writes:

The bigger deal would have come from nascent talks to merge Disney with Apple — a merger which, Iger thinks, would have been “truly transformational and equal”.

“We talked about it internally, and we had some conversations with Apple about it, but it never went anywhere.” Why not? Iger shrugs: “Well, Apple didn’t show that much interest.”

Iger wrote in his memoir that he believed Apple and Disney would have joined if Steve Jobs were still alive.

However, it sounds like Iger was keen to make a deal happen in the post-Jobs era too. But Apple didn’t take the proposal too seriously.

What do you think of the idea of Apple and Disney merging? Let us know in the comments.

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