CNBC’s Jim Cramer Issues Verdict on Disney’s Takeover of Fox: ‘One of the Worst Acquisitions I’ve Ever Seen!’
CNBC’s Jim Cramer has rendered a verdict on Disney’s takeover of Fox, calling it “one of the worst acquisitions I’ve ever seen.”
Ahead of his appearance on Squawk Box, Cramer posted a couple tweets blasting Disney and its previous CEO, Bob Iger. He gave a pass to Iger’s successor, Bob Chapek.
“Disney story will no longer be a referendum on ceo.. And analysts still bridling that theme park business could do well in a slowdown. The analysts are obviously out of touch as it is impossible to even get in line to get tickets…Wrong thing to worry about. Trust name,” he tweeted.
Disney story will no longer be a referendum on ceo.. And analysts still bridling that theme park business could do well in a slowdown. The analysts are obviously out of touch as it is impossible to even get in line to get tickets…Wrong thing to worry about. Trust name
— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) August 11, 2022
“Remember, it was not Chapek’s decision to wreck the balance sheet of this company. It was the previous regime. That regime destroyed a gigantic amount of value…. This next q will have Shanghai …,” Cramer also tweeted.
Remember, it was not Chapek’s decision to wreck the balance sheet of this company. It was the previous regime. That regime destroyed a gigantic amount of value…. This next q will have Shanghai …
— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) August 11, 2022
Appearing on Squawk Box, Cramer slammed Disney’s 2019 acquisition of 21st Century Fox.
I just think that that $71 billion acquisition of Fox of the part that [Rupert] Murdoch was able to fool among is still lingering and is not talked about enough by the analysts who seem to like are into the free pass business. Because what you really need to see is consistent cash flow, return to the dividend and get away from the notion that what we want to talk about is pricing Disney+ whether India’s taking or not taking something low price.
And maybe we can get that because I think that the theme parks … the theme parks are an excellent story but they weren’t able to write down … maybe they should’ve written down, say, $35 billion. But it’s all integrated. But it’s a shame because if they took the hit then you’d see how what really hurt this company. And it wasn’t just Disney+.
“It was one of the worst acquisitions I’ve ever seen,” added Cramer, referring to Disney’s 2019 acquisition of Fox. “I think it was just, you know, they just got had!”
“Sometimes you just get had!” he said.
Cramer explained his reasoning for why it was a bad acquisition.
“When you pay too much for something and it impacts your balance sheet to the point that this did, the you get lost in the weeds of pricing of Disney+ instead of just celebrating the fact that the company came through Covid very well,” he said. “I think it was an ill-advised acquisition. They paid too much. I do believe that they would like to take charge but they can’t because it’s too integrated.”
Watch above, via CNBC.
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