Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed to CNBC’s Jim Cramer why the entertainment conglomerate turned down a chance to buy Twitter years ago: “It just didn’t feel ‘Disney’ to me.”
In an “Mad Money” interview that aired Tuesday, Iger pulled back the curtain on his thought process when Disney considered buying the social media platform in 2016.
“Well, I got cold feet for the right reasons. … I thought we’d be taking on responsibility that we shouldn’t take on” because “it was too complex in terms of Twitter’s place in the world,” Iger explained to Cramer.
The chief, who has been in the seat since 2005, wrote about the potential Twitter deal in his new memoir “The Ride of a Lifetime” that is now available.
At the time, Disney was exploring ways to deliver its content to consumers. Twitter the social platform has a way of closing the gap that exist between brands, along with celebrities, and their target audience.
“It was interesting because we thought it would be a good platform to distribute our content on and to get closer to consumers, which is critical in today’s business environment,” Iger said in the interview, “but I thought there are things Disney does well, and there are things Disney doesn’t do well, but there are things Disney shouldn’t even try to do well and that was one of them.”
Disney later bought a majority interest in BAMTech, a sports streaming website.
Twitter was reportedly gauging takeover interest from a number of technology businesses, including Google’s Alphabet and Salesforce, that ultimately never came to fruition. The company could provide valuable access to a large amount of user data, but was challenged by its slowest growth since going public three years prior and had meek forecast.
Shares of Twitter fell nearly 30% to $16.30 in 2016 trading, according to FactSet. The company’s fortunes, however, have since reverse, climbing nearly 154% to date.
Under Iger’s nearly 14-year tenure as head of Disney, the value of the mass media company has increased more than 454%, FactSet said. The stock closed Tuesday’s session at ___ and the company is worth more than $237 billion.
Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable trust owns shares of Disney, Salesforce and Alphabet.
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