The $50 Billion Company Gene Munster Wishes Apple Would Buy
It's earnings season and Apple is faring very well, the company smashed Wall Street's revenue expectations. Investment research firm Zacks held consensus expectations of $51.2 billion in revenue, but the tech giant reported $52.6 billion, 12 percent higher than a year ago.
According to Gene Munster, a long-time Apple watcher and managing partner at Loup Ventures, this is the company's best quarter in years.
"December of 2014 was the last time that Apple grew every product in every geography," Munster told Cheddar on Friday.
And since that time, the company has amassed a pretty big cash stockpile. For the quarter, Apple CFO Luca Maestri said the company “generated strong operating cash flow of $15.7 billion and returned $11 billion to investors through [its] capital return program.”
At the end of the quarter, the tech giant had nearly $270 billion on its balance sheet. That's bigger than the entire market cap of Wal-Mart...and the GDP of Venezuela!
And Munster has some ideas for what the company can do with that money. If Apple wanted to make an acquisition, for example, he thinks the best move would be American automaker Tesla.
"Netflix is always out there," as a possible target, he said. "It would make a lot of sense because it would play into its service business. [But] the company that I wish it would buy is Tesla." He cautioned though, that he doesn't think it'll happen.
"Elon Musk doesn't want to sell, but as a backstop, as you see the Tesla shares slide here, I think Apple would love to buy them at some point."
Unlike Apple, Tesla posted a big miss in its latest quarter, recording its largest ever loss of $2.92 a share.
Nestlé has dismissed its CEO Laurent Freixe after an investigation into an undisclosed relationship with a direct subordinate. The company announced on Monday that the dismissal was effective immediately. An investigation found that Freixe violated Nestlé’s code of conduct. He had been CEO for a year. Philipp Navratil, a longtime Nestlé executive, will replace him. Chairman Paul Bulcke stated that the decision was necessary to uphold the company’s values and governance. Navratil began his career with Nestlé in 2001 and has held various roles, including CEO of Nestlé's Nespresso division since 2024.
Kraft Heinz is splitting into two companies a decade after they joined in a massive merger that created one of the biggest food companies on the planet. One of the companies will include brands such as Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese and Kraft Mac & Cheese. The other will include brands like Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables. When the company formed in 2015 it wanted to capitalize on its massive scale, but shifting tastes complicated those plans, with households seeking to introduce healthier options at the table. Kraft Heinz's net revenue has fallen every year since 2020.
About 780,000 pressure washers sold at retailers like Home Depot are being recalled across the U.S. and Canada, due to a projectile hazard that has resulted in fractures and other injuries among some consumers.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
