Family Of Walt Disney Supports Bob Iger In Company’s Proxy Fight With “Hedge Fund-Backed Opportunists”

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.

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.

Celine Dion is speaking out in honor of Stiff Person Syndrome Awareness Day.

Demi Sims has finally spilled the beans on what sparked the massive row that has caused a rift between her and her older sister, Chloe.The 27 year old and her sister Frankie, 28, have been at odds with their big sister Chloe, 42, who used to be on The Only Way Is Essex, for several months now. In fact, the disagreement has even affected their own Only Fans reality show, House of Sims.The siblings star in the show along with their brother Charlie, 31, and his girlfriend, Georgia Shults, 32. But a while ago, a huge rift drove a wedge between the two sisters.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor John Oates carefully sidestepped the elephant in the room on Wednesday during his keynote conversation at SXSW, even as the veteran hitmaker offered anecdotes and pearls of wisdom from his more than 50 years in the music business. Oates made no overt mention to the lawsuit and enmity that has erupted between him and longtime professional partner Daryl Hall during his hourlong Q&A, held at the Austin Convention Center as part of the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.

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.”

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.

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.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney CEO Bob Iger acknowledged that the company is behind Netflix in terms of technical capabilities — and that the Mouse House is in the process of catching up. “We need to be at their level” of technical capability, in order to reduce marketing expenses and cut churn rates, Iger said about Netflix, speaking Tuesday at the 2024 Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference. Iger reiterated that Disney is on track to achieve profitability in the streaming business — which includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ — by the fiscal quarter that ends September 2024.

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alone! The Love Is Blind star's feelings about Jimmy's big night out may have been valid—at least, according to fellow contestant Jessica Vestal.Chelsea has been a divisive figure since the pods, where she went viral for telling fiancé that she's told she looks like . Fans immediately suspected Chelsea was feeling insecure over Jimmy's relationship with other women in the pods, particularly Jessica, a single mom that also caught the tech sales executive's attention.

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.

Kelly Osbourne is passing on her last name — whether her husband likes it or not!

EXCLUSIVE: Effective immediately, Walt Disney‘s President of Motion Picture Studios Sean Bailey, who turned the company’s animation vault into a multibillion-dollar live-action movie business, is departing after 15 years on the lot. Searchlight co-president David Greenbaum is stepping in to replace him.

Big news for the Mouse House. Longtime Walt Disney Studios president Sean Bailey is departing the studio.

One Stockport Family Hubs has now opened facilities in different areas in Greater Manchester to help improve the lives of young people and families.