A short while ago, rumors began circulating on Wall Street that VZ is interested in acquiring DIS.

Yesterday, the CEO of VZ said the company has no interest.

some sense…

The rumors made a little sense, in my view, for two reasons:

–the cellphone market in the US is maturing.  The main competitors to VZ all appear to be acquiring content producers to make that the next battleground for attracting and keeping customers, and

–the Japanese firm Softbank, which controls Sprint, seems intent on disrupting the current service price structure in the same way is did years ago in its home country.

…but really?

On the other hand, it seems to me that DIS is too big a mouthful for VZ to swallow.

How so?

–DIS and VZ are both about the same size, each with total equity value of around $175 billion.  If we figure that VZ would have to offer (at least) a 20% premium to the current DIS stock price, the total bill would be north of $200 billion.

How would VZ finance a large deal like this?  VZ’s first instinct would be to use debt.  But it already has $115 billion in borrowings on the balance sheet, so an additional $200 billion might be hard to manage, even though DIS is relatively debt-free.

Equity?  …a combination of debt and equity?

An open question is whether shareholders in an entertainment company like DIS would be content to hold shares in a quasi-utility.  If not, VZ shares might come under enough pressure for both parties to want to tear up a potential agreement.

dismember DIS?

VZ might also think of selling off the pieces of DIS–like the theme parks–that it doesn’t want.  The issue here is that all the parts of DIS, except maybe ESPN, are increasingly closely interwoven through cross-promotion, theme park attractions and merchandise marketing.  So it’s not clear the company can be neatly sectioned off.

Also, as the history of DIS’s film efforts illustrates, the company is not only a repository of intellectual property.  It’s the product of the work of a cadre of highly creative entertainers.  Retaining key people after a takeover–particularly if it were an unfriendly one–would be a significant worry.

From what might be considered an office politics point of view, VZ’s top management must have to consider the possibility that after a short amount of time, they would be ushered out the door and the DIS management would take their place running the combined firm.  Would key DIS decision makers want to work for a communications utility?

my bottom line

All in all, an interesting rumor in the sense that it highlights the weakness of VZ’s competitive position, but otherwise hard to believe.