Amazon.com to Buy Target Corporation?

Actually, it Makes Some Sense.

investorplace.com: It remains to be seen if the eye-opening prediction that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) will acquire Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) this year was just a savvy publicity stunt, or an actual expectation. With TGT stock jumping nearly 2% on the mere mention of the idea though, the market may well be leaning towards the latter.

It was Loup Venture co-founder Gene Munster’s, by the way (yes, the same Munster that used to handicap stocks for Piper Jaffray), that made the call. He explained within a report dissecting a total of eight predictions for 2018 “Target is the ideal offline partner for Amazon for two reasons, shared demographic and manageable but comprehensive store count.”

It’s an idea that would have been laughable just a couple of years ago. While few could argue that Amazon isn’t the king of e-commerce, moving into the brick-and-mortar world wasn’t quite Jeff Bezos’ milieu.

In light of some recent acquisitions though — not the least of which was buying grocery chain Whole Foods Market — the idea doesn’t seem far-fetched at all today. More important, to current Target shareholders, such a deal may be the last bastion of hope for a graceful exit of an increasingly-troubled trade. Munster also thinks, should a deal go through, Amazon’s offer would be on the order of 15% more than the current per-share price of TGT stock.

With that as the backdrop, there are more arguments in favor of this proposed pairing then Munster laid out.