Apple CFO Reacts to Google/Motorola Deal

[MacRumors]

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer participated on a conference call hosted by investment firm Gleacher and Company earlier this week. During the call, a participant asked Oppenheimer about Google's $12.5 billion proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility:

$12.5 billion is a lot of money.

The Motorola acquisition is by far the largest by Google and many times larger than the biggest deal Apple has ever participated in: the acquisition of NeXT in 1997 that brought Steve Jobs back to the company. Apple paid $429 million in cash and 1.5 million shares of stock in that purchase.

Apple had more than $76 billion in cash at the end of the most recent quarter. Before the Motorola purchase, Google reported $39 billion in cash.

Article Link: Apple CFO Reacts to Google/Motorola Deal

 

[QuarterSwede]

$12.5 billion is a lot of money.

No S***.

This is a story!?

 

[Shrink]

My, my, my - so much money floating around.

 

[FrizzleFryBen]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Indeed Peter. $12.5B is a lot of money. Glad we're on the same page.

 

[chrmjenkins]

I'm pretty sure he's saying "I think they overpaid" without actually saying it.

 

[Skika]

I can see why he gets top dollars.

Clearly a genius.

 

[tigres]

Must be a slow news day. What a quote, who'd of even thought?

 

[Northgrove]

Wow. I had no idea Google just used up a third of its total cash reserves in that deal. I know it was a major purchase, but that.... Yes, that is a lot of money. A long time of Android sales.

 

[blyan]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Indeed Peter. $12.5B is a lot of money. Glad we're on the same page.

Would that be Larry?

Nyuk nyuk nyuk.

 

[huggyb]

wow people, way to NOT read into the sarcasm from Pete there.

 

[JoEw]

I gurantee when the iPhone 4 is free on every network in the united states with a 2 year contract apple will kill the mobile market, android shares will drop and google will be kicking themselves later for this purchase.. just my opinion.

 

[QuarterSwede]

wow people, way to NOT read into the sarcasm from Pete there.

Well duh, he didn't use "/sarcasm."

 

[coder12]

I eat 12 billion dollars every morning for breakfast...

 

[Apple...]

Apple has never spent more than a billion on a company? Good job.

 

[Northgrove]

I'm pretty sure he's saying "I think they overpaid" without actually saying it.

Yes, me too. Like the GOOG shareholders also seem to have thought, looking at how violently the rising stock made a downturn the day the deal was announced (their shares are still dropping as I'm typing this, since Aug 15). There's been some confusion over this behemoth of a deal, detailed in an imho pretty good article here: http://www.investorguide.com/articl...by-buying-motorola-mobility-for-12-5-billion/

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Apple has never spent more than a billion on a company? Good job.

Apple hasn't spent billions in outright buying companies, but they've invested quite heavily in companies throughout their history. Recently, Apple has spent over $4 Billion investing in display factories for their products.

Before this, Apple invested in a tiny startup called ARM, were major investors in Akamai, and invested $150 Million in Samsung to secure LCDs for their desktop displays.

[edit]
On topic, Google paid a 63% premium over Friday's share close for Moto so this is probably why the quote exists. I bet he'd say the same thing about the price MS paid for Skype. MS initially crowed about how they didn't need investment bank help buying Skype, until the rest of the world knew they paid double what the company was worth in a very good day.

 

[the8thark]

No S***.

This is a story!?

Quoted for truth.

 

[ryanw]

I'm pretty sure he's saying "I think they overpaid" without actually saying it.

Probably overpaid for it, but more importantly, what situation is google so desperately protecting them from? Why give up 2/3 of your cash in such a move? High risk move for sure.... No risk, no rewards, but you gotta think, what's at risk?? If this doesn't work out for google, it could be interesting to see some serious dynamics.

 

[krburrell]

I think they really overpaid!!!

 

[Morod]

Seems to me like

Motorola has been a rudderless ship for quite a while now. I have no idea if this is a good move or not, but I generally don't trust mergers.
Morod

 

[_Matt]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Everybody at Apple gets so terse from hanging around Steve so much.

That's way too much money, and he knows it.

Apple is probably hoarding their cash to purchase their own manufacturing facilities, or maybe even the manufacturers themselves.

 

[blouis79]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

They will a big stack of patents and expect to get some negotiating power to keep android alive. But will it be enough to compete with Apple's market position??

That apple can continue to make money selling previous generation iPhones is a killer strategy.

Can Google/Motorola design and build a killer smartphone???

 

[rdowns]

Apple has never spent more than a billion on a company? Good job.

Apple's largest acquisitions to date have been NeXT for $404 million; P.A. Semi for $278 million and Quattro Wireless for $275 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple

 

[darbus69]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

apples most significant investments have guaranteed them unlimited supplies of components at unbeatable prices-I think the title of Steve-O's autobiography needs to be changed back to The Book of Jobs-a bible of information on how to rule the world of technology and business-it's fun to watch, and experience such a dynamic...

 

[wovel]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

They will a big stack of patents and expect to get some negotiating power to keep android alive. But will it be enough to compete with Apple's market position??

That apple can continue to make money selling previous generation iPhones is a killer strategy.

Can Google/Motorola design and build a killer smartphone???

They also bought a drain on their Revenues. MMI has consistently lost money since it started. Maybe they have a plan to turn it around. Given the fact that no one at google has ever marketed anything at all to consumers or operated any consumer oriented business at all, it will be interesting to see what they do.

I suspect they will continue to be a losing entity for a number of years.