Billion dollar deals are becoming a weekly occurrence, but this could be one of the more surprising ones yet.
According to the Financial Times, Apple is in talks to buy Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre's headphones company, Beats Electronics, for a staggering $3.2 billion. The deal could be closed as early as next week, but FT made sure to emphasize that the talks aren't complete, and could easily fall apart sometime in the next few days. If it does get completed, though, Apple will take control of Beats' hardware division and its streaming music service. While Beats and Apple don't really have much of a relationship outside of Beats headphones being in Apple Stores, Iovine talked with Steve Jobs years ago about launching a streaming service, before Apple unveiled iTunes Radio. "So I met [Jobs] and we hit it off right away. We were really close," Iovine said in an interview. "We did some great marketing stuff together: 50 Cent, Bono, Jagger, stuff for the iPod — we did a lot of stuff together. But I was always trying to push Steve into subscription. And he wasn't keen on it right away."
If Apple succeeds, the deal will be its biggest acquisition ever.
[via Financial Times]
