Shame on Robert Iger

[Mouseaholic!!!]

Ouch!

Robert A. Iger
Chief Executive Officer
Walt Disney Company (The)
Media & Entertainment

In 2008, Robert A. Iger raked in $51,229,341 in total compensation.* In the previous year the CEO of this company made $28,773,941. Total CEO compensation has increased by 78%.


Take that $$ in a year your company experienced a downturn.....Perhaps he should go work in the banking industry. He would fit right in!

 

[jimmymac]

GM would welcome that kind of ability. Almost 2000 layoffs / buyouts and he gets a 78% bump. Go figure. Had he kept his previous pay scale, that could have saved 460 $50,000 jobs

 

[Condorman]

I'm glad that's his salary.

With all the CEOs Disney has ever had, whenever Iger leaves, no one will remember him. He will not have accomplished anything significant to warrant his name in the annals of the company ledger. Buying Pixar? Refurbing DCA? Building two new DCL ships? Shangahi DL?

Sorry, Bob. We reserve the history books for doers, not re-doers.

Enjoy your $50m... and cutting the value of Disney's stock in half.

 

[deej696]

Actually....shame on the "board of directors" for approving a contract that would allow for such pay/bonus/options in a down year. But as is typical of public companies today, instead of having the shareholders interest in mind as they are supposed to do, most boards are simply a puppet for the CEO. Disney is no different, and thats been the case since well before Mr. Iger...

 

[King Triton]

OMG!!!

That is unbelievable. What has he really done to deserve that obscene amount of money????

Creativity is down and lack of imagination is down. I love Disney and Walt's vision and this really makes me mad.

I need a drink.

Imagine my Disney friends if that money was invested back into the parks.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

Although I don't agree with the salary increase YOY, the employee reductions were not unexpected, these were forecasted a few years ago, just the plan was accelerated.

As for the job savings, I think 460 is a little too generous, most people forget its not just salary saves that companies incur, they also have Benefits, Taxes, Rent Allocations, Risk and Insurance and Incentive/Merit increases. I work in finance and I can tell you that this year many companies experienced HUGE jumps in the Benefits costs, which include not just medical and dental, but long term items like Pension costs. Additionally corporate risk and insurance rose substantially due to the market volatility. Some companies are now paying 50% of the the employees salaries in just benefits and taxes.

I know it doesn't help with the increase in his salary and I don't think he is some stellar CEO, but I also wouldn't read all that much into it, espicially when it is total comp, not just salary (I would guess salary was level or slightly increased, and long term stock options which are valued differently increased).

 

[zulemara]

If he wasn't homogenizing the parks, destroying the brand(direct to DVD sequels) destroying the concept of WDW being a vacation resort for everyoneand letting the parks deteriorate, I might have a different opinion. Unfortunately, all these things are happening under his watch.

 

[Peter Pirate 2]

Iger? Iger! Should I say it? Naw, you guys already know it by heart.

 

[LuvOrlando]

-

 

[coasterj]

wow that is crazy next thing you know he will want a bail out for his "company tough times" to build a new ride

 

[DisDreaminMom]

Um, they already tried to get that. Remember the railroad line from Vegas to Disneyland that was included in the original version of the stimulus bill and dropped because of protest? If I'm not mistaken, Disney execs donated very heavily Democrat this election, so I'm sure they'll get stimulus sometimes soon. (Moderator- not talking politics, just making an observation).

 

[Wile E coyote]

As for the job savings, I think 460 is a little too generous, most people forget its not just salary saves that companies incur, they also have Benefits, Taxes, Rent Allocations, Risk and Insurance and Incentive/Merit increases. I work in finance and I can tell you that this year many companies experienced HUGE jumps in the Benefits costs, which include not just medical and dental, but long term items like Pension costs. Additionally corporate risk and insurance rose substantially due to the market volatility. Some companies are now paying 50% of the the employees salaries in just benefits and taxes.

Yeah, but you forget that most of the employees make less than 50k per year, so I would think that the 460 saved jobs might even be an understatment.

 

[movie77]

Ouch!

Robert A. Iger
Chief Executive Officer
Walt Disney Company (The)
Media & Entertainment

In 2008, Robert A. Iger raked in $51,229,341 in total compensation.* In the previous year the CEO of this company made $28,773,941. Total CEO compensation has increased by 78%.


Take that $$ in a year your company experienced a downturn.....Perhaps he should go work in the banking industry. He would fit right in!

stories like this almost make me want to become a democrat. No CEO is worth this kind of money unless they are a founder like Steve Jobs or Walt Disney who actually had the vision to create a company. I'm only half joking when I say you could walk in WDW grab the first CM you see, make them CEO, and you would not see a big difference at the end of the year between the job they did as CEO and the job Iger did. Board of directors and most companies are entirely corrupt. I love the we have to pay for "talent" arguement. Iger is soooo talented and creative we all pale in the sun of his brilliance, please. I can see a big CEO making a couple of million and even then its probably not deserved, but $50 million with a floundering stock? Outright theft!

 

[tjl1388]

Sorry to play devils advocate hear but wealth envy and class warfare are rampant in this country and this is a prime example. My feeling for the way the company has been run not withstanding, Mr. Iger I am quite sure worked very hard to get where he is and I am sure has sacrificed quite a lot in family time and other areas. He did not lobby to make that much money, it was voted on by the B.O.D. and approved. He did not personally drive down the stock, the state of the economy and people taking less vacation and spending less money drove down the stock. Be happy, buy it while it is down and retire with more DVC points.

He works for his money and used no government funds to take his pay...unlike others.

 

[mitros]

Actually....shame on the "board of directors" for approving a contract that would allow for such pay/bonus/options in a down year. But as is typical of public companies today, instead of having the shareholders interest in mind as they are supposed to do, most boards are simply a puppet for the CEO. Disney is no different, and thats been the case since well before Mr. Iger...

Let's face it, that board has been behaving shamefully for many, many years now.............
And don't forget, Ei$ner had a lot of "friends" on the board when he was the grand high exaulted mystic ruler. {apologies to the Jackie Gleason show}

 

[mitros]

Sorry to play devils advocate hear but wealth envy and class warfare are rampant in this country and this is a prime example. My feeling for the way the company has been run not withstanding, Mr. Iger I am quite sure worked very hard to get where he is and I am sure has sacrificed quite a lot in family time and other areas. He did not lobby to make that much money, it was voted on by the B.O.D. and approved. He did not personally drive down the stock, the state of the economy and people taking less vacation and spending less money drove down the stock. Be happy, buy it while it is down and retire with more DVC points.

He works for his money and used no government funds to take his pay...unlike others.

....he was also a lackey of Ei$ner when he was running Disney. And Ei$ner had the B.O.D. under his thumb.

 

[JimB.]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaawn..................

If the OP had bothered to read the ENTIRE article he quotes, he would have also seen this:

But most of it came in stock options that currently have little value.

And..................

The bulk of Iger's co mpensation came from stock options granted in January 2008 when Disney's stock was trading close to $30 a share. The entertainment company's shares now trade just above $21 a share, meaning the values of these options are what is known as being under water — no holder would exercise them because they would lose money if they turned around and sold the shares acquired.

And..................

According to the filing, Iger declined a $2.4 million bonus he was eligible to receive related to total shareholder return.

And, oh yeah, in the last FY, Disney's revenue grew 7%, and profit fell 5.5% to $4.45 BILLION.

Now, that being said, he DID pull down, through various sources a total of $16.645 million ($ 2 mill salary (unchanged from '07), a $13.7 mill performance bonus & $773,000 in provided services ). I will agree, that is still a pissload of money, and maybe or maybe not deserved, but no where near the amount that is being screamed from the rooftops.

I would be asking what benchmarks are in place to qualify for the performance bonus he got, and whether they are appropriate. If they were, I'd say "Hey, it works for me". Heck, I wish it WAS me, but I have absolutely no clue how to run a multi-billion $$ organization.

But jeeez, read the entire thing, not just the inflammatory lead-in......