[FredPret]

I looked into this - Apple actually only has $62B in equity in their business - $332B in assets and $270B in liabilities. [valustox.com/AAPL]

GS is worth $100B and has $116B in equity. [valustox.com/GS]

Of course, Apple has a market cap of 2.8T and could buy GS 28 times over using shares, but that involves diluting shareholders to fund this new venture.

On the other hand, that might be a great new revenue driver for Apple since everyone already has a phone - I bet they could be a bigger, better bank than the big banks. Even JP Morgan, the biggest US bank, has a market cap of $435B [valustox.com/JPM].

[bombcar]

Yeah, and GS is the perfectly wrong bank for them to buy as it's really just an investment bank.

But all this muttering sounds like we're going to see GS buy a tiny bank, saddle it with the consumer business (e.g, Apple Card and savings) and then sell that bank to Apple.

I wonder if "owns an Apple device" is enough to count as a group for a credit union ... :D

[lotsofpulp]

Legally, GS became a regular bank all the way back in 2008.

https://www.goldmansachs.com/our-firm/history/moments/2008-b...

There is no purpose to GS buying a tiny bank, they already have all the licenses and regulatory requirements and liability exposure. And they opened to retail customers 7 years ago:

https://www.goldmansachs.com/media-relations/press-releases/...

What motivation would Apple have to buying a bank and exposing itself to all that extra regulation and liability? Apple will just move on to the next best offer they get from a bank for a cobranded credit card, like any other retailer.

[queuebert]

How can they be worth less than their equity? Do they have negative goodwill? If so, that's hilarious.

[prewett]

Accounting measures aside, have you ever heard anyone express positive sentiment toward GS? They have negative (colloquial) goodwill in my book, although I'm definitely highly influenced by Buffett's summary of his experiences with them.

[FredPret]

Could be several things:

- negative goodwill

- investors think their assets are not worth the sticker price

- looming lawsuit acts like a liability but may not show up on the books yet (see Hawaiian Energy - Hawaii wildfires - valustox.com/HE and Verizon - lead cables - valustox.com/VZ)

- investors expect a lower profits, which sort of translates into being equivalent to their assets being worth less.

Some companies, like banks, have vast assets, vast liabilities, and moderate earning power. Tech companies have almost no assets, but huge earning power - because the real asset is arranging engineers in a certain way, and that's hard to measure on a balance sheet.

[hnfong]

You'd be surprised how many publicly listed companies trade below book value...

(And they're not always a bargain)

[johngladtj]

Banks often trade at book values less than 1 due to the way their business works