The rumors are mounting as speculation around Peloton’s uncertain future venture into the realm of unreason.
Feb. 9, 2022
When I was twelve years old, I spent months writing a derivative, strung out, meshed together ‘novel’ that combined the worlds of Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ and the ‘Star Wars’ universe.
But I don’t want to discuss my failed sci-fi exploits, the fanfiction we’re looking at today is Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) acquisition of Peloton (NASDAQ: PTON).
Is Apple buying Peloton?
Let’s say it did; what would that look like?
- The acquisition would be at least four times the size of Apple’s largest acquisition ever — Beats for $3 billion back in 2014.
- Apple would inherit a hot mess in Peloton which just let go of 20% of its talent pool — in a pretty ignominious way, I might add.
- It would be dealing with a major executive turnover following the departure of co-founder and CEO John Foley yesterday — read more below.
- Antitrust would be all up in Tim Cook’s grill — and nobody wants that.
Now, don’t mistake me for Nostradamus here, feel free to call me out later if I’m proven wrong, but I’d venture a guess that Apple’s not touching Peloton with a 10-foot, iPhone-exclusive selfie stick — which it would probably sell to you at about 400% above market value.
But jokes aside, investors are becoming far too hung up on acquisition news. Peloton bulls can take a breather now and wait to see if incoming CEO Barry McCarthy can right the ship. Apple investors can also stop wringing their hands, pining “the one that got away” in Peloton.
Apple — including its near 800 million reported service subscribers — will be just fine working on its own connected fitness platform, Apple Fitness+, and may even come out the better of this Peloton mess as consumers flock to a less controversial product.
So, everybody just take a breath and let the market do its thing.