The Walt Disney Co (DIS) -) has seen better times.
As the iconic entertainment company prepares to celebrate its centennial in October, the usually busy summer season for its theme parks have hit a snag with shorter wait times and slowing traffic.
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At the box office, the recent flop of Disney Pixar's "Elemental" is also weighing on the company as the animated film with a $200 million budget took in less than $30 million in its opening weekend.
Add to that the 14 million subscribers Disney+ lost earlier this year and the three main pillars of the House of Mouse -- theme parks, film and television -- are all experiencing shaky times.
And in these shaky times, analysts at Needham believe the best option for the historic company is to sell itself. And in a note this week, the firm says the sale will happen within the next three years.
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"Outside of fundamentals, we do believe Disney will be purchased during the next three years... Takeover premiums have historically been 30% -40% above the public trading price for media companies," analyst Laura Martin.
This isn't the first time Needham has floated the idea of Disney being sold.
In March, Martin said that tech giant Apple (AAPL) -) should kick the tires on a purchase as the 1.25 billion unique Apple customers and the 570 million people Disney counts as consumers every year "are worth more together than separately."
Apple also has the market cap (about $2.5 trillion) and funds to pay the 30% -40% premium on Disney's stock price that it will take to get a deal done.
Disney shares are down more than 6% over the past 12 months.
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