The Apple logo in Apple Flagship Store in Hongkong Credit: hanohiki via Shutterstock.com Apple is moving its mergers and acquisitions team back under chief financial officer Kevan Parekh, who ended the company’s net cash neutral policy in May in a move analysts read as room to buy things. It also promoted Carson Oliver to run the App Store, a job that is now mostly about European regulation. Apple is moving its mergers and acquisitions team back under the chief financial officer for the first time since 2019. Steve Smith, a longtime lieutenant, replaces Adrian Perica, who has run corporate development for more than a decade, and will report to Kevan Parekh.
Perica keeps iCloud, Fitness+ and News and still reports to services chief Eddy Cue, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the move. Apple declined its request for comment. John Ternus replaced Tim Cook as chief executive on 1 September. Parekh is the executive who dropped the cash target.
He told the May earnings call that Apple was abandoning the net cash neutral policy it set in 2018 and would evaluate cash and debt independently, which analysts read as room to buy things. Apple held about $54B in net cash. Apple’s largest acquisition is still Beats, at $3B in 2014, though it paid about $2B for the Israeli AI firm Q.ai this year. The group does more than buy companies.
It negotiates partnerships, including the 2024 arrangement that put ChatGPT into Apple products and the standing deal that makes Google the default search engine. We reported in July that Apple had approached bankers and chip startups about buying its way out of an AI server problem. Two other seats moved. Carson Oliver becomes vice president of the App Store.
We reported on 31 August that he was already running it day to day, after Phil Schiller stepped back from the store and from product events. That job is now mostly a European one. The Commission fined Apple EUR 500M over anti-steering, the General Court rejected its argument in July that its app stores are separate services, and in August Apple replaced the EU Core Technology Fee with a flat 5% commission. The third seat is empty.
Jennifer Bailey, who ran Apple Pay and Wallet for years, leaves this month, and Cue has not named a successor. His own remit has grown with every departure, and employees see Perica and Apple Music’s Oliver Schusser as the likely candidates to replace him. Count the businesses. Apple’s three most heavily regulated operations in Europe are the App Store, payments, and the deal that keeps Google on its devices.
In six weeks it has changed who runs two of them and left the third vacant. Also tagged with
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