joining me know is paul sweeney. who broke therman story force. alex, let's start with you. yahoo! assets are valuable? paul: verizon bought aol. yahoo! and aol shared similar businesses. they have problematic advertising technology. the come with a large digital reach. betty: why would they want the objective paul: verizon's plan is to marry data with users. they have 100 million subscribers through wireless environ, you can take the digital data that you get from the users of aol and yahoo!, and marry that with this advertising technology that uses algorithms to show digital advertising, and that was a mobile video product which, her verizon has already introduced, that seems to be the plan, because her businesses are so similar, you can reduce a lot of cost. there is synergy with verizon that you might not get with any other company. i think that's why verizon is taken such a hard look at yahoo!. mark: what can verizon or google dotime or at&t or comcast that marissa mayer could not achieve? paul: the real challenge for any owner of you who is to try to get that core operating bu

joining us now is paul sweeney, head of research for north america.his man has been groomed for nearly one decade to become the ceo. >> this is a surprise to disney investors. certainly, everybody in hollywood. tom was the cfo for a long time. he was being groomed for more than 10 years along with another executive. resume low left. i got the odd -- the deal to the uco. for the board to come back to say he's never a person is not surprising. >> there are some ports coming have -- you may not possess all the skills needed, and therefore, they were not willing to really bless them as the heir apparent. maybe, they would look outside of disney for some other options. >> i think the problem with that he actually ran a good secession plan. he identified to very strong able executives. groomed them over a long time to succeed him. it didn't work out here in the end. now, the company left with very few internal candidates. a lot of people think they will look outside the company. perfect world, they would've wanted to take an internal candidate. mark: who wi

paul sweeney says that mid single digit would be a win for viacom.g downtrend remains in effect. dragging on the nasdaq today, apple. the stock down 1% after raymond james cut iphone estimates, unit estimates for 2016. saying,ualcomm guidance the iphone hangover is not over yet. apple had asked its iphone suppliers to keep production at current levels. when we take a look at a chart, we see these bearish concerns showing as the sellers pushing the shares of apple back down even toange, perhaps the recent lows near $32. we will have to see what happens next week when the company reports monday after the bell. carol: we have to talk about google. the stock actually higher today. abigail: investors are looking for 19% earnings growth. that translates to $7.96 per share. a big number for the first quarter. plus investors would like to see 32% growth in paid clicks. the stock is trading up into the quarter. has missedlphabet adjusted earning estimates five out of the eight last quarters. we see the shares have been trading in a rough range over the last s

gene munster and paul sweeney will join us any hour.ve for this conversation on bloomberg radio. abby joseph cohen will refer my need to be an american equities. "surveillance." ♪ we have just been speaking to christine lagarde, t he managing director of imf. tom will talk about the markets and that important conversation we had with madame lagarde in a second. vonnie: a sign of the global slowdown is have an impact on germany. factory orders fell 1.2% in february. peugeot seeaker some speed bumps ahead. spending on new technology will have an impact on profits. it plans to come out with 26 new cars. the sudden succession times of disney is not so clear. has steppedarent down. no reason is being given for the departure of tom stakes. -- tom staggs. the problem is convincing board members he was the right person to succeed. tom: thanks so much. i guess it is a big shock at disney, mr. staggs has done better than good. smith is a little bit important, lee director, ex- starbucks guy. runs the university of washington. who's oren smith and

paul sweeney is with us.urprising the report, and if not, why did shares take such a dive? line was top telegraphed to people, but the weakness stemming from the iphone weakness decline itself, probably the magnitude took investors by surprise. investors,estion for which it has been for the last year plus is, this was obviously an iphone company, and can it continue to be an iphone company, and can the iphone dependence drive growth over the next several years like it has over the past several years. we need either a new product or a refresh, but a new product category to drive the next five years of sales, and now investors do not see it. it is not the watch, it is not television, so investors continue to say i am dependent on the iphone and that might not drive growth. he's in india is where china was seven or eight years ago. he also said smartphone growth and stagnation is due to economic factors -- macroeconomic factors. paul: to a certain extent, tim cook is right. china is a big driving market for him

let's bring in paul sweeney.ust broke,ings another corridor where they can't seem to get anyone excited. can twitter turn around? it here wenot seen have had several quarters now with essentially flat user growth. it has stalled out here. you hate to compare it to facebook, which continues to grow. joe: the idea that we would compare them at all is ridiculous. >> i agree, but if you are twitter you have to sit back and say i have to grow my user base or get more revenue per user today. i think they would like to do both, but they really haven't been able to innovate on the product side to the degree that they can get new users to come onto the platform. do in nfley footballng deal with games, will that bring in new users to twitter? i think they are banking on, but we have not seen it. scarlet: we say whether we should compare twitter with facebook. twitter has become a cnn like destination when you need breaking news but otherwise it is limited. >> sheryl sandberg last quarter said if you are a big brand adverti

theave paul sweeney in airport. through airport security -- i'm glad you got through airport security. could you explain the story, no one wants this dog but for verizon. at thisople are looking and asking if the cash flows are there. i think verizon looks at it differently. they are making a big that on -- bet on wireless, wireless content. that is why they bought aol last year. they see one million active monthly users. they see a lot of content, advertising technology on the data side. i think tim armstrong thinks they can make the go with yahoo!. francine: where are the other bidders? is it too expensive or too risky with assets? paul: we probably started with 40 bidders. it is whittling down to a small .ield the players on the margin, who thought they might be able to make a financial play, whether financial buyers themselves, or strategic players, i think they have bowed out because they are really unsure about the ongoing financial strength of this business. it is a company that has a seven-year decline. when

let's bring in paul sweeney of bloomberg intelligence. he follows both of the companies.reamworks deal. it is probably a hefty price tag based on previous deals. >> yes, it is a huge multiple. thatlk about the synergies bring it down to high single digits. on the surface, it is north of 25 times cash flow. they are clearly saying animation is important to us and come -- content is important to us. have a good animation business. buying dreamworks, this really sets them apart and puts them in the business -- animation, all that content derived off of these characters. scarlet: wasn't dreamworks the brainchild of steven spielberg -- the league i left out of that crew is going along as well? >> i do not think so. he is getting a title and a role but he is not part of the transaction. he will take his money out of the company and it is all caps deal. this is really a deal where comcast is saying, i want your content, your library of content because throughout the universal family, i think they feel they can do it disney does very well, it andntent and monetize all these types

let's get into it with alex sherman of bloomberg news and paul sweeney, who follows the industry at largeems to be, every bidder has a piece of the pie they are looking at. >> yahoo! makes sense to different companies for different reasons. you could throw in the equity firm as well, who may partner with these other companies. verizon owns aol, and the idea would be to merge yahoo! and a altogether, some synergies where maybe verizon can add were no other company can, which makes yahoo! a better deal for verizon theoretically. google would want it for other reasons. the problem with google is antitrust concerns. been all overe google for years, so you woer, if they bought yahoo!, whethey partner with someone in order to divest certain assets they need to avoid antitrust? we don't know if google will make an offer. we know that verizon is working with at least three banks. they are ving forward on a first-round bid. alix: strategically, yahoo! was doing everything at the same time. are they still looking for a way to turn around the business at the same time of trying to sell themselves? >

this is a huge relief for viacom investors and while we don't have the details of the agreement, paul sweeneysingle-digit annual increases in fees would be a big win for viacom. the stock is having its best days and march of 2009. tracy: it's a big day for some very notable technology companies. what are we seeing at of that action? we have microsoft and alpha that reporting tonight after the close. investors are looking for low single-digit earnings for microsoft. it's likely this quarter will mirror recent quarters talking about how the company is moving more toward the cloud. alphabetic different where investors want to know how the company is bringing its search business to mobile and growth expectations are different. investors are looking for 21% growth in earnings, 19% in revenues. a huge difference with microsoft but when we look at these two stocks, we see they are trading in tandem. i spoke to the head of technical analysis and he explains the difference of both companies being part of a strong industry group, the software and service industry group. microsoft and alphabetic are the

tracy: let's bring in paul sweeney. mworks is one of the few independent players left in hollywood. is this going to kick another media round of consolidation off? paul: we think it will. we saw consolidation in addition region side of the business. at&t buying directv, charter communications about to acquire time warner cable. in the wake of that it made a lot of sense for some the content companies, studios, to really get together and level the playing field and consolidate on their own. i think one of the areas we have about, some of the smaller independent companies such as amc or lions gate or dreamworks might consider to get together amongst themselves or might be candidates to be acquired by some larger companies like comcast. david: jeffrey katzenberg has tried to sell the company before. what is different? paul: comcast has had a lot of success across the board. the cable business had good earnings and the company today. all their businesses are doing generally well, particularly nbc universal. they acquired the