She-Hulk star Tatiana Maslany won’t back down from her comments about Disney CEO Bob Iger that were made during the SAG-AFTRA strikes. But she seems somewhat sorry that she smashed the CEO of the company that produces her show.
03.04.2024 - 01:59 / deadline.com
The minutes are ticking down to the close of Disney’s bitter proxy fight with Nelson Peltz, whose attempt to scale the board is a direct challenge to CEO Bob Iger.
Barring any hanging chads, results from voting for members of the board of directors will be revealed Wednesday at the company’s annual shareholder meeting at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. PT. (Polls officially close at 11:59 p.m. ET tonight.) Iger fought, and authorized the spending of $40 million, to quash the interloper activist investor, but win or lose, he invited the fight by botching succession.
Fumbled regime change became Peltz’s rallying cry, far more compelling that his thoughts on strategy. It’s the reason the race was so hard-fought. ISS, the most influential proxy advisory service, dealt perhaps the biggest blow to the company by backing Peltz in a move reminiscent of its withholding votes from then-CEO Michael Eisner in 2004 during the last epic annual-meeting showdown.
This time, the firm cited in large part the failed succession process of 2020, when Iger stepped down abruptly just as Covid was starting to upend the world, and named company lifer Bob Chapek as CEO. The board backed that baton pass, “admittedly not following the process it has outlined for the current succession strategy,” ISS said, adding that board members “simply trusted Iger’s judgment without conducting more rigorous due diligence.” Another odd call was Iger staying in the mix as executive chairman to oversee the creative side of the business, predictably butting heads with Chapek.
“Disney is so well planned, telegraphed and it seemed like that got sprung on us,” says one Wall Street analyst. “It still really bugs me.”
Peltz’ presence could reassure other investors that the
She-Hulk star Tatiana Maslany won’t back down from her comments about Disney CEO Bob Iger that were made during the SAG-AFTRA strikes. But she seems somewhat sorry that she smashed the CEO of the company that produces her show.
Zack Sharf Digital News Director “She-Hulk” star Tatiana Maslany went viral during the SAG-AFTRA strike last year when she called out Disney CEO Bob Iger for being “completely out of touch” due to his controversial comments about the Hollywood work stoppage. That “She-Hulk” was a Disney-backed Marvel series streaming on Disney+ only drew more heightened attention to her Iger call out.
The Walt Disney Co. has released the official vote totals from its April 3 annual shareholder meeting, the event that featured the culmination of a proxy fight waged by Nelson Peltz.
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney released the official vote counts from its 2024 meeting of shareholders held April 3 — in which investors decisively defeated a campaign by activist investor Nelson Peltz to win a seat on its board. According to the votes disclosed in an SEC filing Tuesday, nine of the Disney-backed director candidates received more than 90% of the shares voted in their favor.
UPDATED with new exec comments. Disney CEO Bob Iger has offered more precise timing for Disney’s previously announced plan to crack down on password sharing on streaming flagship Disney+, saying it will start rolling out in June.
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Some subscribers to Disney‘s streaming services will start seeing some new messaging up this summer: Pay up for anyone outside your main household who’s illicitly piggybacking on the services — or face potentially getting disconnected. According to Disney chief Bob Iger, the Mouse House this June will “be launching our first real foray into password sharing” enforcement.
One day after Bob Iger faced questions about Disney‘s competitive position vs. Universal in the Orlando theme park game, there came more information today about a significant expansion of Walt Disney World.
It had all the elements of a good action movie – jeopardy, revenge, a mega budget – with even some casualties thrown in (albeit corporate).
Activist investor Nelson Peltz, reflecting on his losing proxy battle with Disney, says he will “watch and wait” to see if the company keeps its promises.
Disney investors backed Iger and other company directors, defeating a campaign by activist investors including Nelson Peltz who argued that Disney had underperformed in the streaming-television era.“The proxy vote was a decisive, true endorsement of the board,” he said, playing down criticisms of the activist investors and saying that the company was focused on succession – one of the major tasks facing the board of Disney.Asked about criticism from billionaire Elon Musk, who had backed Peltz in the proxy battle, Iger said: “I ignore it.”
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor A day after Disney declared victory over activist investor Nelson Peltz, CEO Bob Iger said the board is proceeding with “urgency” in trying to identify the next chief executive with the “distraction” of the proxy fight over. “This was decisive in terms of how shareholders voted,” Iger said in an appearance Thursday morning on CNBC from Disney’s Burbank, Calif., headquarters, about the results of the April 3 meeting. Succession “is the board’s No.
Cynthia Littleton Business Editor In the end, Bob Iger didn’t have to break a sweat to fend off Nelson Peltz. No question, Disney did have to spend tens of millions of dollars to fight the proxy battle with the activist investor, which came to a head on Wednesday with the Mouse House’s annual shareholders meeting.
After Disney declared victory in its proxy battle with activist investor Nelson Peltz, CEO Bob Iger went on a theme-park offensive during the company’s annual shareholder meeting.
Scoring a big and costly win Wednesday against Nelson Peltz’s second attempt to get on the Disney board, Bob Iger was both gracious and a little biting in victory.
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor It’s official: Disney shareholders shot down activist investor Nelson Peltz‘s effort to win seats on the Mouse House’s board of directors. Investors voted to reelect all 12 of the company-backed board members, including CEO Bob Iger, ending the most expensive corporate proxy fight in history.
Disney has succeeded in barring Nelson Peltz from its board of directors as shareholders at the company’s hotly anticipated annual meeting today voted for the company’s slate of 12 nominees. It was a months-long bitter and costly fight.
Elon Musk is backing Nelson Peltz in the proxy battle for the future of Disney.
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Disney and CEO Bob Iger have pulled into the lead for their 12 board candidates to win reelection — with activist investor Nelson Peltz trailing — with more than half of shareholder votes cast ahead of the Mouse House’s April 3 annual meeting, according to the Wall Street Journal. Two of Disney’s institutional investors — BlackRock (which owns about 4.2% of outstanding shares) and T. Rowe Price (0.5%) — support the company’s own slate of directors, which include Iger, per the Journal, citing anonymous sources.
Disney may have nudged Nelson Peltz farther from its board as giant BlackRock is said to be backing the company’s slate of directors. The firm is Disney’s second-largest shareholder at about 4.2%.
Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Usually, shareholder votes for corporate board directors have all the suspense of a Soviet-style election. Most of the time, director candidates are backed by the company, and they run unopposed — winning election or reelection in a landslide. In 2022, only 75 board-endorsed candidates at companies in the Russell 3000, less than 0.5% of almost 17,500 board members on the ballot that year, failed to get elected by shareholders, per an analysis by the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance (which also noted that, while small, the number had dramatically risen vs.