Tragic Kingdom Upheaval - Disney's CEO Bob Iger Plans Exit as Boardroom Challenges Arise

Red State ^ | 12/01/2023 | Brad Slager

[SeekAndFind]

With so much going on in the news this week, one company that is happy there are so many distractions away from its problems is Disney. After weeks of consecutive massive failures in theaters, the entertainment giant is going through some executive-level dramas, and it is becoming apparent there is no clear strategy to solve the mounting issues. 

CEO Bob Iger was drawn back into his leadership role last year when his heir - Bob Chapek - began to encounter several self-created problems. However that hoped-for storyline of Iger becoming the needed white knight has not achieved the happy ending; instead, the company seems locked in the second-act of a drama of turmoil and hardship. Now it appears that Iger has had enough.

While not stepping down immediately, the boss is looking over the status his company is mired in and has announced he will step away when his contract ends in 2026. Speaking at The Dealbook Summit put on by The New York Times, Iger made his intention clear while discussing generalities about the company. He sounds as if he is surrendering after not meeting the challenge of turning the company's fortunes around.

When taking control back just about a year ago, he was said to have a two-year stint in mind, but then this summer he announced the extension to that current deal. Now, just four months later, he is making his exit plans and it seems apparent why. Little has changed in that interim, and in November the company saw two benchmarks in theaters no company brags about—it experienced its worst Marvel title debut ever, and on Thanksgiving had its second consecutive bomb on that holiday weekend.

But then, in a sign of a company that looks disinterested in fixing its problems, the executive boardroom is fighting off a challenge by a new entity. For about a year now the equity firm Trian - an investor in Disney - has been acquiring more stock as its market share has been dropping. The billionaire leader of Trian, Nelson Peltz, has long hinted at wanting to become a boardroom presence and now has made the proxy move official. The Disney board is resisting this attempt.

Since Peltz made it known this week he intended to gain at least three seats on the board, the company has fought back. It instituted rules changes to limit the ability of nominating names for the board, as well as appointing two new figures - top executives from Morgan Stanley and Sky Broadcasting. Those nominations will be voted on by shareholders in the coming months, and this is when Peltz hopes to sway support. 

Much of the resistance to the Trian move is less about operations and is more personal. Former Marvel chief Ike Perlmutter was sent away this past spring, and it is said that he is working alongside Peltz, combining their stake to the tune of over $3 billion worth of stock and giving them more voting power. Over the past year Trian has been acquiring even more shares of the depressed stock, so the real battle for control could be emerging this winter.

Whether he sees this resistance to Trian as a futility, or perhaps he is just tiring of the inability to right the ship as he encounters more entertainment failures, Iger is giving the appearance of a CEO who has had enough. The unfolding drama for Disney is whether Iger will be able to groom his next successor, or will that fall by the wayside if Peltz and Trian manage to wrest control of this foundering company?

[AlaskaErik]

I've been in love with Gwen Stefani ever since this album came out.

[aquila48]

My guess is they’ll replace him with someone even woker.

[Captain Peter Blood]

Iger will be gone sooner rather than later and will not be leaving on his time table.
Disney losses at the box office just this month may hit $500 Million and this year losses on movies may exceed $1.3 Billion. Time to clean house with Iger, Feige and Kennedy.

[Captain Peter Blood]

They are going to, Snow White 2025 anyone?

[Captain Peter Blood]

He never left. He was Chairman of the Executive Committee and never left his office. Everything you see right now was Green Lit when he was there the first time.

[Jim Noble]

He went off to Congress an’ served a spell
Fixin’ up the Governments an’ laws as well
Took over Washington so we heered tell
An’ patched up the crack in the Liberty Bell
Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier

[zeestephen]

Re: Iger plans exit

The Board of Directors never explained why they brought Iger back.

Iger was responsible for "green lighting" ALL the movies that crashed and burned over the last three years.

[SauronOfMordor]

Their latest movie, Wish, has been a box office disappointment.

At this point, the gay/woke brigade has thoroughly infiltrated Disney. You would have to do something similar to what Elon Musk did to Twitter, fire 80% of staff and bring in new people.

Musk had a big advantage at Twitter, as he already had lots of very talented software engineers at SpaceX and Tesla who could be shifted.

[RoosterRedux]

Bfl

[FLT-bird]

Bob Iger is the guy who really opened the door to letting the woke mind virus infect Disney in the first place through many of the people he hired.

[GrannyAnn]

“whether Iger will be able to groom his next successor”

Grooming. It's what Disney does best.

[MikelTackNailer]

What’s in that photo? Are they preserving all the corpses of the Disney stars for experimentation? Or farming them Matrix-style?

Actually your analogy is very close: Disney's current leadership is sucking the hard work and innovation of the characters' original creators out of the revered films, twisting that legacy for their compulsion to beat modern audiences with the "wokeness stick" they themselves were subjected to at high-cost universities.

When the traditional Disney fans saw their beloved childhood icons sorely abused for obvious socialist propaganda purposes they rightfully felt betrayed - and stopped giving money to a company they trusted for decades.

We also should factor in how these companies with spines of jelly react when small minorities with big mouths and official-seeming stationary threaten them in order to push agendas.

[dangus]

>> Actually your analogy is very close: Disney’s current leadership is sucking the hard work and innovation of the characters’ original creators out of the revered films, twisting that legacy for their compulsion to beat modern audiences with the “wokeness stick” they themselves were subjected to at high-cost universities. <<

So well said, I refernced you just to post it again.