George Lucas is the latest to come out in support of Disney and CEO Bob Igert as the company wages a bitter proxy fight against activist investor Nelson Peltz, who is making a run for two seats on the company’s board.
01.03.2024 - 04:13 / variety.com
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The descendants of Walt Disney and his brother Roy O. Disney have weighed in on the bid by two activist investment firms to win seats on the board of the Walt Disney Co. Nelson Peltz, the activist investor who runs hedge fund Trian Partners, is waging a proxy-fight battle to install himself and ex-Disney CFO Jay Rasulo as directors; Peltz’s stated aim is to drive up the price of Disney’s stock.
Another investment firm, Blackwells Capital, supports the leadership of CEO Bob Iger and the current board — but is urging Disney shareholders to vote for its own three candidates instead of Disney’s or Trian’s nominees. Disney opposes the candidates put forward by Trian and Blackwells as lacking “the appropriate range of talent, skill, perspective and/or expertise,” and is urging shareholders to vote for its own 12 nominees. The candidate slates will be up for a vote at Disney’s 2024 annual shareholders meeting April 3.
On Thursday, grandkids of Walt and Roy Disney issued two separate open letters to Disney shareholders supporting Iger and the current board — and opposing the rival board candidates. (Read both letters below.) “What concerns us most about these hedge-fund-backed opportunists is that they have little to no knowledge of what Disney truly means to people like you,” Roy O. Disney’s grandchildren — Abigail E.
Disney (pictured above), Roy P. Disney, Susan Disney Lord and Tim Disney — wrote in their letter. “They haven’t made any arguments for why they should be entrusted with the keys to the kingdom our family built.
George Lucas is the latest to come out in support of Disney and CEO Bob Igert as the company wages a bitter proxy fight against activist investor Nelson Peltz, who is making a run for two seats on the company’s board.
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Star Wars mastermind George Lucas has come out with a statement in support of Disney‘s board and CEO Bob Iger, urging Mouse House shareholders to reject a bid by two activist investor groups to take seats on the media company’s board. “Creating magic is not for amateurs,” Lucas said in a statement released Tuesday. “When I sold Lucasfilm just over a decade ago, I was delighted to become a Disney shareholder because of my longtime admiration for its iconic brand and Bob Iger’s leadership.” Lucas continued, “When Bob recently returned to the company during a difficult time, I was relieved.
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Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney‘s current strategic direction under CEO Bob Iger got the thumbs-up from independent proxy voting and corporate governance advisory firm Glass Lewis, amid a campaign launched by two activist investor groups to win seats on the Mouse House’s board. Glass Lewis, in a March 18 report, recommended Disney shareholders vote for the Disney-selected 12 director nominees — and reject those put forward by Nelson Peltz‘s Trian Partners and another firm, Blackwells Capital — at the company’s annual meeting on April 3.
Proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis has recommended that Disney shareholders withhold votes for all board candidates except the company’s own.
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Disney’s latest salvo in a proxy fight with activist investor Trian Fund Management highlights the firm’s “silent partner” Ike Perlmutter and his “difficult history with Bob Iger.”
Disney shares were up 2% at mid-day Monday, extending their recent rally, as the company renewed its attacks on activist investor Nelson Peltz.
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After skidding to multi-year lows in late-2023, Disney stock has rebounded more than 20% thus far in 2024 as two activist investment firms have launched a proxy fight.
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Disney CEO Bob Iger remains committed to turning the ship around, but in doing so, admits the company has had to make some hard choices and cancel projects the studio didn’t have 100% belief in. “You have to kill things you no longer believe in, and that’s not easy in this business,” Iger said, speaking at a conference hosted by Morgan Stanley in San Francisco on Tuesday (via THR).
Disney CEO Bob Iger said the studio has “killed a few projects already that we just didn’t feel were strong enough,” as the company tries to reverse a box office slump.
Disney CEO Bob Iger called the proxy fight being waged by two activist investors a campaign that “is, in a way, designed to distract us, to take our eye off all [that’s] necessary to do what we need to do to generate returns for shareholders.”
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Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Nelson Peltz’s Trian Partners, which is agitating to get two seats on Disney’s board, on Monday released a lengthy white paper analyzing the Mouse House’s financial performance — and suggesting strategic fixes. The recommendations, according to Trian, are aimed at turning around Disney‘s stock performance, which has trailed most of its peers (except Warner Bros.
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