As WDW Pro was publishing a video explaining the Disney Earnings Report, huge news broke. Nelson Peltz is ceasing his efforts to get onto the Disney Board and is declaring absolute victory.
BREAKING NEWS
Nelson Peltz bought into Disney with nearly a billion dollars when the company was at $85 a share… it’s now $115. That’s three months for a 35% return on investment. But that’s not the only places that the activist investor and his Trian group won. Here are some of the other requests he had made which came through in the Disney earnings report yesterday:
- Restoration of the Dividend
- More focus on live sports as a branch of Disney’s company structure
- Major cuts to production budgets
- Allusion to Disney Parks capacity increases
The only thing that Peltz really didn’t receive of the major points from his Restore the Magic push: Disney did not offer any concessions on reporting their risks with the Chinese economy / government.
“This was a great win for all the shareholders. Management at Disney now plans to do everything that we wanted them to do.”
— Nelson Peltz
According to The Hollywood Reporter, this officially ends the proxy war effort:
Disney’s proxy battle with activist investor Nelson Peltz is over, with the investor saying Thursday morning that he is abandoning his plans to join the company’s board of directors.
With Peltz declaring unmitigated victory, was there a behind-closed-doors agreement on the China issues he had brought up? Only time will tell. For now though, Peltz remains an outspoken investor with a huge swath of Disney stock. Should the company go back on any of its “concessions,” one might imagine Peltz waging another campaign again in the future. That… or he may just cash out his chips with such a fantastic overall haul.
For all the latest news that should be fun, keep reading That Park Place. This is a breaking news story. We’ll have more as it updates.
This sounds like a compromise to keep Peltz off of the board of directors and therefore from having any real decision making power over the company. Sad but not surprised to see yet another attempt to moderate TWDC go down the drain.
Peltz received nearly everything he wanted. TWDC may yet moderate as a result of these changes.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Such a thing would likely require significant housecleaning at the highest levels including doing away with Iger himself. Best case scenario under the current regime is they’re more quiet about their intentions publicly while still maintaining the trajectory they have been privately. So, until I see significant changes in who’s making the big decisions, I’m going to side with AJ’s theory that Peltz really wanted the financial goods and was willing to put any truly effective attempt at moderation to the side.
Yeah, the only real hope here is that Peltz got concessions on the China info AND on reversing the woke push in private, since everyone knows Iger can’t or won’t say those things out loud. But for those concessions to matter, Peltz must maintain some kind of monkey wrench he can throw into the works, that Iger can’t simply work around. Does Peltz have such a thing? Does he perhaps have newly established control over board members’ decisions? Seems doubtful. I think all the talk of Peltz wanting Disney to stop shifting left were abandoned when he got the financial goods he was really after.
It isn’t rocket science.
If the stock goes up then Peltz gets rich and is happy. If the stock goes sideways or down then Peltz doesn’t get rich and is angry. Angry Peltz = Peltz on board. He doesn’t really care how Iger makes him rich, as long as Iger makes him rich.
Where’s Re-Imagine Tomorrow in all of this? They still going to be a influence within the company?
Now, this is the good news I like to hear! Well done, WDWPro! That’s how you make good news!