Brad Feld

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Starmazon or Amabucks

Jan 02, 2020

Why doesn’t Amazon acquire Starbucks?

Starbucks has one thing Amazon doesn’t have – over 30,000 physical locations. Sure, Amazon owns Whole Foods, which has about 350 physical locations, but they are large food distribution facilities (e.g. grocery stores) rather than community meeting spaces (e.g. coffee shops).

Amazon’s market cap is $930b. Starbucks’ market cap is $104b. That’s roughly a 90% / 10% merger assuming no premium for Starbucks. Even with a huge premium, it’s still less than an 85% / 15% split.

Oh, and they are both headquartered in Seattle.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if the primary retail point of presence in the US suddenly became Amabucks?

I’m sure there’s a massive analysis of this somewhere in a corp dev department at Amazon or at investment banks pitching Amazon on the deal.

I’m trying to decide if I like the name Starmazon better.