Financial analyst Valliant Renegade shared his analysis on Nelson Peltz and his Trian Fund Management group seeking two board seats at The Walt Disney Company and noted that Iger is not only terrified of Peltz, but that he created a “puppet board.”
Nelson Peltz via David Rubenstein YouTube
Peltz’s Trian Fund Management announced earlier this week that the group was nominating both Peltz and former Disney executive James A. Rasulo to The Walt Disney Company’s board.
As part of a press release Peltz stated, “In our view, Disney’s Board has failed to fulfill its essential responsibilities – overseeing the development of an effective strategy, planning for orderly succession, aligning executive pay with performance, and ensuring accountability for operational execution. Shareholder-led board refreshment with focused and aligned directors who are accountable to the owners of the company is long overdue.”
Rasulo also stated, “The Disney I know and love has lost its way. As independent voices in the boardroom, Nelson and I are confident that the combination of my decades of experience at Disney, Nelson’s significant boardroom skills and history of driving positive strategic change, and our combined consumer brands expertise and financial acumen, will be additive to the Disney Board. With a shareholder mandate, Nelson and I look forward to helping the Board and management reorient the Company towards delighting its consumers again and driving significant value for its owners.”
The Walt Disney Company’s CFO Jay Rasulo leading a business discussion in the Spring of 2014. Photo Credit: Ejalversoniii, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Disney responded to the nominations, “The Walt Disney Company confirmed today that Trian Fund Management, L.P., alongside certain affiliates, including Trian’s previously disclosed partnership with Isaac Perlmutter pursuant to which it obtained beneficial ownership of Mr. Perlmutter’s Disney shares (collectively, “Trian”), has provided notice of its intent to nominate two individuals for election to the Company’s Board of Directors at the 2024 Annual Meeting of Shareholders.”
The Company added, “Disney has an experienced, diverse, and highly qualified Board that is focused on the long-term performance of the Company, strategic growth initiatives including the ongoing transformation of its businesses, the succession planning process, and increasing shareholder value.”
Mickey walks down Main Street USA at Disneyland. (Credit: Mortimer Productions)
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In a recent video upload to YouTube, Valliant Renegade reacted to this move stating, “Bob Iger is terrified of what Nelson Peltz could do if he’s successful in his proxy fight to win a board seat at The Walt Disney Company. For years, Bob Iger has managed to create a puppet board that sings in perfect harmony to whatever song Bob Iger so conducts them to. Nelson Peltz and Trian could certainly throw some discord into that and that’s something Bob Iger doesn’t want.”
After going over a brief history of Peltz’s proxy battle with Iger as well as Iger’s recent history at The Walt Disney Company, Valliant Renegade noted how key Rasulo’s involvement in the battle is, “Jay Rasulo started as an executive at Disney in 1986. He has overseen far more of the major developments and building of Disney than Bob Iger ever has. And Rasulo intimately knows not only how Disney functions from an operation standpoint, but how Disney functions intimately from a financial standpoint and what it is capable of.”
“There maybe no more qualified board candidate than Mr. Rasulo for The Walt Disney Company,” Renegade asserted. “But I’m sure Disney and Bob Iger will bring in their media spin machines to tell everybody how Rasulo is a disgruntled former employee.”
Bob Iger via New York Times Events YouTube
Valliant Renegade then made it abundantly clear why Iger is so terrified. He believes he will lose his grip on power and control over The Walt Disney Company, “Just like Nelson Peltz and Ike Perlmutter, Jay Rasulo is a problem for Bob Iger. He threatens Bob Iger’s god-like status in The Walt Disney Board Room.”
“But the reality is that Jay Rasulo has more experience at running Disney than every single member of the Board of Directors combined save perhaps for Bob Iger himself,” he added.
He drove the point home concluding, “And as we all now know very clearly thanks to folks like Alex Sherman at CNBC that Bob Iger absolutely will not abide anybody with a different opinion on running Disney than him.”
Cinderalla’s Castle in Walt Disney World via 4k WDW YouTube
What do you make of Valliant Renegade’s analysis of the proxy battle Nelson Peltz is waging against Bob Iger?
How can Jay Rasulo be any good for the Disney Board since he was CFO during all the Reedy Creek corruption exposed in the latest CFTOD audit? Disney is over. I wouldn’t be surprised if the State of Florida takea over WDW.
Reedy Creek was always being abused, but much of what you are complaining about right now was done by the current administration – so to plant that at the feet of Jay Rasulo is misguided at best,and makes you a Disney shill at worst.
The point is, Jay was the CFO who kept the profits in order – he was NOT the one barking orders to break the law and abuse the Reedy Creek exception. In short, he’s the perfect forensic partner who knows where all the bodies are buried.