DIS Shareholders and Stock Info ONLY

[Cfabar1]

BoxOfficeMojo has the cum currently slightly over 1.9 billion. 2 billion seems to be the most likely outcome at this point. Disney should be very pleased with the numbers, especially given the “soft” open. Guess the adage “never bet against James Cameron“ has proven true.

 

[wabbott]

BoxOfficeMojo has the cum currently slightly over 1.9 billion. 2 billion seems to be the most likely outcome at this point. Disney should be very pleased with the numbers, especially given the “soft” open. Guess the adage “never bet against James Cameron“ has proven true.

I suspect it has a ways yet to go. I read in one of the articles that there are a lot of repeat customers.

 

[wabbott]

https://deadline.com/2023/01/box-of...ler-the-avatar-way-of-water-m3gan-1235221135/

MONDAY AM: Walk-up ticket sales over MLK weekend just keep going up and up and up. Disney is reporting that 20th Century Studios/Lightstorm’s Avatar: The Way of Water had a better Sunday than anticipated, $11.6M vs. what they thought would be $10.3M, which will get the fifth weekend of the James Cameron movie to $40M over 4-days. Wow. That’s bigger than the $24.6M that Spider-Man: No Way Home did a year ago over MLK. Pic’s running total is now $572.4M. Next tentpole for this sequel to beat on the all-time US/Canada box office list is The Incredibles 2, which ranks 12th with a domestic total of $608.5M.

 

[HokieRaven5]

Disney’s Latest SEC filing with a response to claims by Trian and Nelson Peltz

The Walt Disney Company Proxy Statement

 

[_19disnA]

It is not unusual for some outsider to want a bigger say in how a company is run. Often they talk about releasing 'shareholder value' as a scheme to drive up the stock price with actions that are mostly short-term. I don't know all of the history with Peltz, but it sounds typical of what I have seen happen many times with other companies. What really matters is what % of the vote they have as to whether or not the agenda they are pushing moves forward.

In a company as large and diverse as Disney, there are no magical solutions to making the company more profitable. There are a lot of unrelated divisions and some are more profitable then others. Outsiders who only want to push their agenda in an effort to make money in the near-term are usually bad for the company in the long run.

 

[RivShore]

It is not unusual for some outsider to want a bigger say in how a company is run. Often they talk about releasing 'shareholder value' as a scheme to drive up the stock price with actions that are mostly short-term. I don't know all of the history with Peltz, but it sounds typical of what I have seen happen many times with other companies. What really matters is what % of the vote they have as to whether or not the agenda they are pushing moves forward.

In a company as large and diverse as Disney, there are no magical solutions to making the company more profitable. There are a lot of unrelated divisions and some are more profitable then others. Outsiders who only want to push their agenda in an effort to make money in the near-term are usually bad for the company in the long run.

Whatever Peltz may have in mind, he's only asking for one seat so he will not have the power to make any changes without buy in from the others.

I decided to vote against all the current board members as soon as the Bobs fiasco broke. This board hired Bob 2.0 just a few years ago, then extended his contract less than a year ago, then sent him packing a month ago, with no better idea than bringing Bob 1.0 back. No matter how you slice it, that is a major failure on the board's part - They went from he's the guy to lead us to the promised streaming land to he's so good we are going to extend him to "your fired" all in a few years. That is the definition of an out of touch board and demonstrates exactly what not to do.

If anyone thinks any of them deserve reelection, I would love to hear why.

ETA: I have not read the proxy statement yet but I assume it does not address the CEO mess they created. Thanks for posting @HokieRaven5

 

[wabbott]

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/17/dis...-peltz-has-no-track-record-in-big-media-.html

Disney rips Peltz over board fight, defends Iger’s acquisitions​

Published Tue, Jan 17 20239:14 AM EST Updated 6 Min Ago
Lillian Rizzo@Lilliannnn

Key Points

• Disney defended CEO Bob Iger as it pushed back on activist investor Nelson Peltz’s bid for a seat on its board.
• Disney responded that Peltz has “no track record” with large media companies after Peltz and his firm, Trian, initiated a proxy battle last week.
• Peltz laid out his case for the Disney proxy fight last week, claiming shareholder value has been eroded and raising issues with the Fox acquisition.

In this article

• DIS+1.31 (+1.32%)

Disney ripped Nelson Peltz and his bid for a board seat Tuesday, as the entertainment giant’s proxy fight with the investor and his activist firm, Trian Fund Management, takes shape.

Disney said in a securities filing Tuesday that its board was where it needed to be to move the company forward. The company also defended CEO Bob Iger’s past acquisitions and said Peltz didn’t have an understanding of Disney’s business, lacked the skills to drive shareholder value and presented no strategy.

“Peltz has no track record in large cap media or tech, no solutions to offer for the evolving media landscape,” Disney said in an investor presentation that was released Tuesday.

Last week, Peltz laid out his case for a proxy fight with Disney on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” after Trian filed a preliminary proxy statement looking for a seat on the board.

Peltz raised issues with how shareholder value has eroded recently and Disney’s $71 billion acquisition of Fox in 2019. Trian has also called out what it called poor corporate governance, including failed succession planning and Disney’s lack of engagement with Trian in recent months.

A representative for Trian declined to comment on Tuesday.

Trian said it owns about 9.4 million shares valued at roughly $900 million, which it first accumulated months ago.

Disney preempted and opposed Trian last week when it announced that Mark Parker, the executive chairman of Nike, would become the new chairman of the board.

In Tuesday’s filing, the company defended the numerous acquisitions closed under now-returned CEO Iger, included Marvel and Lucasfilm, saying they enhanced the company’s value for shareholders and were transformative for the company.

Disney’s portfolio has meant it’s often led in the box office with Marvel films and “Star Wars” installments. Those assets have also provided much of the content for its marquee streaming service, Disney+.

As for its Fox acquisition, which Peltz took particular issue with in his presentation last week, Disney said Fox has broadened its intellectual property portfolio further and provided the company with a “deep bench” of talent, including Dana Walden, who’s been considered a contender as the next leader of the company.

When Iger made his shocking return to Disney’s helm in November, replacing his hand-picked successor Bob Chapek after a poor earnings report, he said he would only stay for two years to help look for his next successor. Newly appointed board chairman Parker will lead the process of finding a new CEO, the company said last week.

Disney noted on Tuesday that in addition to succession planning, it is in the midst of a cost-cutting plan and prioritizing streaming profitability.

Disney’s stock was rocky in 2022 as it came out of the early days of the pandemic when movie theaters and theme parks were closed. Slowing streaming subscriber growth also weighed on media stocks in the past year.

Peltz said on CNBC last week he’s been pushing for a board seat to get access to internal numbers and tell other members if and when they’re missing out on opportunities.

Disney on Tuesday contested some of Peltz’s claims about the parties’ conversations thus far.

The company said it had offered Peltz an information sharing agreement, meaning he would have met quarterly with both management and the board, rather than a board observer role as Peltz said. Otherwise, Disney pointed to numerous interactions between the company and Trian.

–CNBC’s David Faber contributed to this report.

 

[RivShore]

So, as expected, the statement never addresses the poor succession planning. It doesn't lay out the net cost of the Fox assets retained by Disney, as I tried to do in a PP. I think that would have helped them in their defense of the acquisition.

 

[RivShore]

I hated the big money spent on Fox but am slowly coming around to a contrarian view. So, before we can conclude that it was the worst mistake in history, we have to look at what would have happened if they did not spend that money:

If Comcast bought it instead, all that Fox IP it would have created a much more formidable competitor that could have damaged Disney for decades to come. They are a direct competitor in movies, TV, streaming, and parks and this would have handed them valuable IP to fuel all those operations. It would have handed a controlling stake in Hulu, at the time the second largest streamer, it would have handed them a good chunk of Marvel IP, busting apart a universe Disney really wanted full control over, they would have had control over Avatar, again something Disney is heavily invested in and who's future would now be in a competitors control. Gaining all that control and related IP may have been worth the risk. Only time will tell.

As for streaming, the alternative would have been sticking with Netflix and I don't think they wanted to to feed that beast anymore and have their family shows and movies showing up alongside Dahmer and worse. Yes, D+ became way too much of a money pit but the entire industry went down that road so the problem is not unique. I always thought keeping it focused and selling it to families for the library access made the most sense, hey family x, you used to spend a $100 a year on 4 or 5 Disney DVD's, now you can get access to thousands of hours for that same annual cost. Some kind of shakeout is coming soon to the streaming industry but I think its safe to say D+ will one of the ones left standing. Again, way too soon to deem the 2nd largest streamer in the world a failure.

And blaming just the Fox buy for a damaged balance sheet is ignoring that "little" pandemic we had and all the investments in D+.

One thing the statement reminded me of that I forgot in my posts defending the Fox buy - Fox owned the distribution rights to Star Wars so that brought all of that in house too. Again, if Fox went to Comcast, Disney would be enriching a direct competitor (in all their business lines) with every successful SW release. Also I wonder if any other Lucas Film properties were distributed by Fox, like Indian Jones?

 

[wabbott]

Opinion piece originally published on Bloomberg

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/disney-peltz-show-shouldnt-cast-the-board-as-villain/2023/01/17/c1b20360-9670-11ed-a173-61e055ec24ef_story.html

Disney-Peltz Show Shouldn’t Cast the Board as Villain
Analysis by Beth Kowitt | Bloomberg

January 17, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. EST

Just as Walt Disney Co. announced last week that Chairman Susan Arnold would step off the board after a 15-year run as a director, activist investor Nelson Peltz made public his all-out war against the company.

Queue the palace intrigue. Was Arnold leaving as a concession to Peltz? Or because she wants no part in the nasty proxy battle that’s likely brewing? It’s possible that a bit of both is true. But the overriding factor, and the one Disney has publicly pointed to, is much more boring: term limits. Disney’s board tenure policy caps director service at 15 years, and Arnold’s time simply was up.

Term limits might be dull, but they’re a good thing. They keep directors from becoming complacent or overly aligned with the CEO. They force a refresh that injects new ways of thinking into the boardroom. That matters when 48% of directors say they want to see at least one of their fellow board members replaced, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s most recent annual corporate directors survey. But term limits are also exceedingly rare; Disney is among only 7% of companies in the S&P 500 that have them for non-executive directors.

This picture of Disney as responsible corporate citizen, dutifully implementing its board tenure policy, is in stark contrast to the one painted by Peltz’s Trian Partners LP. The firm’s proxy filings argue that Disney has generally underperformed, spent too much on its 21st Century Fox acquisition, has struggled to make its streaming service profitable, and overpaid its executives. (Peltz makes a point to note that he was told a virtual board meeting wouldn’t happen before Jan. 6 because CEO Bob Iger had plans to sail his yacht off the coast of New Zealand).

These critiques are not particularly new, revelatory, or controversial. Trian, however, doesn’t offer up many ideas for how the company can make things better — other than to add Peltz to the board, of course. Many of Disney’s problems can be chalked up to its corporate governance practices, most notably its botched CEO succession, Peltz says. He seems to think he can do it better. This position often makes the filings read more like a case for Nelson Peltz as a Disney director than a case against the company itself.

Succession ranks high on the list of a board’s most important jobs, and Disney put a target on its back after botching it up so visibly. For years, the company’s directors let Iger set — and then adjust — his own timeline for retirement. They let him hand pick his successor, Bob Chapek. They allowed him to stay on as chairman for two years, which ended up undermining his successor. And when the board decided Chapek needed to go, it brought Iger back after deciding he was the only person who could possibly run the company.

Admittedly, it’s not a great look for a board. And it bolsters Peltz’s argument that the company is lacking in the governance department. But policies like term limits signal that Disney is not only doing something right when it comes to board operations but even ahead of the curve on some practices that other companies should emulate.

Thanks in part to term limits, several Disney directors weren’t even involved in a number of the flawed business decisions Trian criticizes most harshly. Seven of the 12 directors hadn’t yet joined the board when Disney announced it was buying Fox in 2017, and three of the company’s current board members have joined since Iger stepped down as CEO in 2020. Today it’s a much younger board, both in terms of age and tenure, and a more diverse one, too — better reflective of the kinds of customers it wants to serve.

Excluding Arnold, who will step off after Disney’s annual meeting, the company’s current average independent director tenure is 4.1 years versus 7.8 for what executive search firm Spencer Stuart reports is the average for S&P 500 boards; the average age for an independent Disney director is 58 versus 63 for the S&P 500. Other than Arnold and Iger, who rejoined the board when he rebooted as CEO, the board roster is completely new since 2015. You can argue the pros and cons of this kind of a turnover — a much-needed refresh versus an inexperienced cohort — but, either way, it does take some of the wind out of Peltz’s attempted portrayal of the board as a deeply entrenched group beholden to Iger.

Last time Iger was on the board as CEO, he was also chairman — a title he held onto until 2021 when Arnold took over. This time, the company has separated the positions, with Nike’s Executive Chairman Mark Parker stepping into the role as Arnold departs. Splitting the chairman and CEO jobs is increasingly acknowledged as good governance and is the direction most companies are moving toward: In its most recent board survey, Spencer Stuart found that 57% of S&P 500 boards split their CEO and chairman roles compared to 43% a decade prior. Parker also has experience replacing long-tenured CEOs synonymous with their company’s brand. He was once one of them. In 2020, he stepped down as Nike CEO after a nearly 15-year run.

One of Parker’s first acts as Disney chairman will be running a newly formed succession planning committee with a mandate of finding a replacement for Iger, who has signed on for a two-year term. Most companies don’t have a dedicated committee designed to address succession, instead tackling the issue as a full board or as part of their compensation or governance and nominating committees. But having a group focused solely on succession seems obvious for Disney when it has struggled so miserably with its chief executive handoff before. It’s probably not a bad idea for most companies to consider a similar structure, as we’ve recently watched both a number of failed CEO transitions as well as companies scrambling when a CEO departs with no ready replacement in the wings.
Disney has managed to engineer a rare do-over of its CEO handoff — now with new and improved corporate governance practices. It may lead to a smoother transition, but this time around there’s really no room for error. Peltz, who is girding for a fight, will make sure of it.

 

[HokieRaven5]

One thing the statement reminded me of that I forgot in my posts defending the Fox buy - Fox owned the distribution rights to Star Wars so that brought all of that in house too. Again, if Fox went to Comcast, Disney would be enriching a direct competitor (in all their business lines) with every successful SW release. Also I wonder if any other Lucas Film properties were distributed by Fox, like Indian Jones?

Indiana Jones was originally distributed by Paramount, they have the rights to any Indiana Jones related content prior to 2013.

 

[wabbott]

New news here. The Peltz thingy has been in the works longer than we knew.

https://www.laughingplace.com/w/news/2023/01/17/marvels-ike-perlmutter-nelson-peltz/

Marvel Chairman Ike Perlmutter Advocated for Nelson Peltz to Join Disney’s Board
by Laughing Place Disney Newsdesk | Jan 17, 2023 7:39 am (Pacific)
Tags: Ike Perlmutter, Marvel, Nelson Peltz, The Walt Disney Company

In a proxy statement rebutting the efforts of Trian and Nelson Peltz to gain representation on Disney’s Board of Directors, The Walt Disney Company’s timeline reveals that Marvel’s Ike Perlmutter was a major advocate for Peltz, contacting multiple executives about bringing him onto the Board.



What’s Happening:

• This morning, The Walt Disney Company released its long-awaited proxy statement, which addressed the efforts of Trian’s Nelson Peltz to join the Disney board.
• Among the materials Disney included is a timeline of events, which notes that Marvel Chairman Ike Perlmutter advocated for Peltz to join the Board on multiple occasions.
• On July 15th, 2022, Perlmutter held a call with board director Safra Catz as well as a separate call with CFO Christine McCarthy and then CEO Bob Chapek.
• Another call with Perlmutter and Catz, this time joined by Peltz, was held the next day. Perlmutter also spoke with Disney’s general counsel Horacio Gutierrez that day.
• Then, on November 10th, 2022, Perlmutter contracted Chapek, Catz, Gutierrez, and McCarthy to advocate for Peltz. On the 12th, Perlmutter and Peltz met separately with Chapek in Palm Beach.
• Elsewhere in the Proxy, Disney states that Peltz “does not understand Disney’s business and lacks the skill and experience to assist the Board in delivering shareholder value in a rapidly shifting media ecosystem.
• The company argues that Peltz has offered no real plan or solutions for the company.
• Disney’s statements comes after Peltz released his proxy statement last week, including launching the site RestoretheMagic.com

 

[Titanium]

https://deadline.com/2023/01/disney...z-activist-investor-plan-bob-iger-1235221450/



Disney hasn’t faced such shareholder dissent since the early aughts. Former Walt Disney directors Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold raised hell at the 2004 annual meeting in a bitter fight to oust then-CEO Michael Eisner. Shareholders at that meeting delivered a shocking 45% no-confidence vote against Eisner, who was stripped of the chairman’s title. Disney and Gold also threatened a proxy fight to seat an opposition slate of directors at the next annual meeting but backed down. Iger, an ABC and Disney lifer, eventually emerged from the tumult to become the company’s CEO.

This will be interesting to watch on all fronts. A report I listened to yesterday stated Peltz's term on corporate boards averaged six years so clearly he is a short-term maximizer.

I'll be interested to see his Disney "White" papers if he is elected to the board. Disney has a very interesting mix of non-park Media assets with widely varying types of revenue streams. ABC, the O&O stations, ESPN, Disney+, etc., at a time when television content delivery is changing.

People have been predicting the death of the Big 4 Networks and their affiliates for decades but they're still around and are the main way viewers consume television. Disney+ and ESPN+ represent the future and (hopefully) should allow Disney to price those channels more appropriately given their rights fees and production costs. ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox won't need local affiliates much longer in television markets ranked above the top 100 markets as they're offering DTC streaming packages already.

Let's hope the most recent Disney+ operating expenses reflect a lot of OTO/Startup costs, because covering the Disney streaming losses with park revenue isn't a winning long-term strategy.

 

[HokieRaven5]

New news here. The Peltz thingy has been in the works longer than we knew.

https://www.laughingplace.com/w/news/2023/01/17/marvels-ike-perlmutter-nelson-peltz/

Marvel Chairman Ike Perlmutter Advocated for Nelson Peltz to Join Disney’s Board
by Laughing Place Disney Newsdesk | Jan 17, 2023 7:39 am (Pacific)
Tags: Ike Perlmutter, Marvel, Nelson Peltz, The Walt Disney Company

In a proxy statement rebutting the efforts of Trian and Nelson Peltz to gain representation on Disney’s Board of Directors, The Walt Disney Company’s timeline reveals that Marvel’s Ike Perlmutter was a major advocate for Peltz, contacting multiple executives about bringing him onto the Board.



What’s Happening:

• This morning, The Walt Disney Company released its long-awaited proxy statement, which addressed the efforts of Trian’s Nelson Peltz to join the Disney board.
• Among the materials Disney included is a timeline of events, which notes that Marvel Chairman Ike Perlmutter advocated for Peltz to join the Board on multiple occasions.
• On July 15th, 2022, Perlmutter held a call with board director Safra Catz as well as a separate call with CFO Christine McCarthy and then CEO Bob Chapek.
• Another call with Perlmutter and Catz, this time joined by Peltz, was held the next day. Perlmutter also spoke with Disney’s general counsel Horacio Gutierrez that day.
• Then, on November 10th, 2022, Perlmutter contracted Chapek, Catz, Gutierrez, and McCarthy to advocate for Peltz. On the 12th, Perlmutter and Peltz met separately with Chapek in Palm Beach.
• Elsewhere in the Proxy, Disney states that Peltz “does not understand Disney’s business and lacks the skill and experience to assist the Board in delivering shareholder value in a rapidly shifting media ecosystem.
• The company argues that Peltz has offered no real plan or solutions for the company.
• Disney’s statements comes after Peltz released his proxy statement last week, including launching the site RestoretheMagic.com

I like Peltz a little less now that Perlmutter is tied to it. He’s part of the reason Tom Staggs left and we wound up with Bob 2.0

 

[RivShore]

I like Peltz a little less now that Perlmutter is tied to it. He’s part of the reason Tom Staggs left and we wound up with Bob 2.0

What was the Staggs/Perlmutter story - I don't recall the details.

 

[HokieRaven5]

What was the Staggs/Perlmutter story - I don't recall the details.

https://www.comicsbeat.com/civil-war-isaac-perlmutters-influence-continues-to-reshape-disney/

“The recent sudden removal of Disney heir apparent Thomas Staggsis partly because of a shift to Ike-style belt tightening, Bloomberg reports. Staggs was all set to take over the position of Chairman when current head Bob Iger retires in 2018, but was suddenly asked to step down earlier this month, leaving no heir apparent. Three Disney division heads have moved in, however; theme park head Bob Chapek; consumer and digital products’ Jimmy Pitaro; and top TV guy Ben Sherwood. Pitaro and Chapek are said to be close to Ike – Perlmutter’s dislike of Staggs is reportedly part of why Staggs was asked to leave. In just a few weeks, the new exec team has instituted cost cutting and revenue boosting measures around Disney including reducing executive perks and raising costs of going to Disneyland and other attractions.”

 

[OKW Lover]

I decided to vote against all the current board members as soon as the Bobs fiasco broke. This board hired Bob 2.0 just a few years ago, then extended his contract less than a year ago, then sent him packing a month ago, with no better idea than bringing Bob 1.0 back. No matter how you slice it, that is a major failure on the board's part

I did something similar, but as a protest about Bob C. I see the board's action to remove him as a positive thing in that they recognized the failure and were willing to correct it.

 

[RivShore]

Disney-Peltz Show Shouldn’t Cast the Board as Villain
Analysis by Beth Kowitt | Bloomberg

Thanks in part to term limits, several Disney directors weren’t even involved in a number of the flawed business decisions Trian criticizes most harshly. Seven of the 12 directors hadn’t yet joined the board when Disney announced it was buying Fox in 2017, and three of the company’s current board members have joined since Iger stepped down as CEO in 2020. Today it’s a much younger board, both in terms of age and tenure, and a more diverse one, too — better reflective of the kinds of customers it wants to serve.

This defense of the board does not say how many of the current board were there when Bob 2.0's contract was extended in 2022. I suspect all of them.

I did something similar, but as a protest about Bob C. I see the board's action to remove him as a positive thing in that they recognized the failure and were willing to correct it.

If it were just a hire then a "yikes, we made a mistake" fire situation, then i would agree, their acknowledgement of a mistake and quick fix (for a large corp) would show that they were an involved board who had the company's best interest at heart, even if they might look bad for the initial selection. But that isn't how it went, they gave him a gigantic vote of confidence with the contract extension just a few months before they fired him. How do they explain that? The only thing we can assume is that they were completly out of touch with what was really happening with the company.

 

[wabbott]

This defense of the board does not say how many of the current board were there when Bob 2.0's contract was extended in 2022. I suspect all of them.


If it were just a hire then a "yikes, we made a mistake" fire situation, then i would agree, their acknowledgement of a mistake and quick fix (for a large corp) would show that they were an involved board who had the company's best interest at heart, even if they might look bad for the initial selection. But that isn't how it went, they gave him a gigantic vote of confidence with the contract extension just a few months before they fired him. How do they explain that? The only thing we can assume is that they were completly out of touch with what was really happening with the company.

Flashback!!!! The internet is a wonderful thing. It allows you to archive and find stuff that 6 months ago someone said/did that is 180 degrees from what they now say.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/28/dis...-ceo-bob-chapeks-contract-by-three-years.html

Disney extends CEO Bob Chapek’s contract by three years​

Published Tue, Jun 28 20224:25 PM EDTUpdated Tue, Jun 28 20226:31 PM EDT
Sarah Whitten@sarahwhit10

Key Points

• Disney has extended CEO Bob Chapek’s contract for three more years, the company announced Tuesday.
• Chapek’s contract was set to expire in February 2023, three years after he unexpectedly took the reins from Bob Iger.

Disney has extended CEO Bob Chapek’s contract for three years, the company announced Tuesday.
Chapek’s contract was set to expire in February next year, three years after he unexpectedly took the reins from Bob Iger. The board, which met Tuesday in Florida, voted unanimously to extend Chapek’s tenure to July 2025.

“Disney was dealt a tough hand by the pandemic, yet with Bob at the helm, our businesses — from parks to streaming — not only weathered the storm, but emerged in a position of strength,” said Susan Arnold, chairman of the board, in a statement Tuesday.

She added: “In this important time of growth and transformation, the Board is committed to keeping Disney on the successful path it is on today, and Bob’s leadership is key to achieving that goal. Bob is the right leader at the right time for The Walt Disney Company, and the Board has full confidence in him and his leadership team.”

Chapek has experienced his share of difficulties during his so-far brief tenure. Disney’s stock, which was unchanged in after-hours trading, is down about 38% this year as of Tuesday’s close.

Chapek was also at the center of a dispute between Disney and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over comments made about the state’s HB 1557 law, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The feud led DeSantis to rally Republican legislators to repeal Disney’s Reedy Creek special district, which it has held for decades.

Earlier this month, Chapek made headlines for firing Peter Rice, Disney’s most senior television content executive. The board said at the time that Chapek had its full support.

The timing of Disney’s transition from Iger to Chapek came just weeks before the coronavirus pandemic forced different facets of the entertainment industry to shutter, including movie theaters and theme parks.

Without revenue from these divisions, Chapek rallied around the company’s fledgling streaming service Disney+. Success of shows like “The Mandalorian” had made the platform popular with consumers, and Chapek held fast to the company’s goal of reaching 230 million to 260 million Disney+ subscribers by 2024.

As of the end of Disney’s fiscal second quarter, the service had more than 137.7 million subscribers.
Chapek, 63, has worked for the Walt Disney Company for nearly 30 years and is its seventh CEO. Previously, he was the chairman of Disney’s parks, experiences and products division.

 

[wabbott]

Oh, Jesus!!!

https://wdwnt.com/2023/01/former-di...to-receive-more-than-20-million-in-severance/

Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek Paid $24.2 Million in 2022, Still to Receive More Than $20 Million in Severance

January 17, 2023 Spencer Lloyd

Former CEO Bob Chapek may be long gone from The Walt Disney Company, but the much-despised executive is still getting paid for his time in the Mouse House.

Chapek, who was fired from Disney in November, received a package worth $24 million for 2022 and is set to receive severance payments valuing over $20 million, so long as he successfully completes “all of the terms of his post-employment consulting agreement”.

Chapek’s severance will comprise of $6.53 million cash in remaining base salary through the scheduled expiration date of his amended employment agreement and about $1 million equivalent to a pro-rated target bonus for fiscal 2023. In addition, Chapek is eligible to receive accelerated Disney stock worth $12.7 million.

In a proxy statement filed on Tuesday, the Disney board laid out the timeline of Chapek’s dismissal, stating they “determined that Mr. Chapek was no longer the right person to serve in the CEO role” in the months following its renewal of Chapek’s contract in June 2022. “The significant developments and change in the broader macroeconomic environment over this period informed how the board viewed the appropriate leader in light of the rapidly evolving industry and market dynamics. The board therefore concluded that, as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation, Mr. Iger is best situated to lead the company while an appropriate longer-term successor is identified.”