Last week, activist investor Nelson Peltz made his case to fellow Disney shareholders to follow what he sees as the best path forward for the media giant. In a filing made to regulators on Thursday, Peltz nominated himself and former Disney CFO Jay Rasulo to join Disney’s Board of Directors, citing the company’s underperformance in comparison to Netflix, a substandard succession plan after former CEO Bob Chapek was fired and overly generous $31.6 million in annual earnings for returning CEO Bob Iger.
Disney responded to this filing with their statement, rejecting the board nominations and accusing Peltz of not having “presented substantial strategic plans for how to improve Disney.” The company suggested that Peltz’s initiative was “clouded by personal animus,” referring to well-documented tension between Iger and Peltz, Rasulo, and Ike Perlmutter, the former head of Marvel Studios.
In an interview with CNBC, Peltz blasted Disney’s leadership by calling its oversight “awful” across the board. Peltz made an effort last year to secure a seat for himself on Disney’s board but relented when the Board assured him that many of the changes he was advocating would be undertaken. One year later, Peltz was back again because, he claimed, another year had gone by without progress. “They promised they were going to improve things…Things got worse. The stock went down. The results got worse…I can’t continue to give them more opportunities.”
It seems that Disney’s board will be able to hold off Peltz, after securing the backing of key shareholders ValueAct and Blackwells Capital. Nonetheless, the heat is rising under Disney’s management team to produce measurable improvements in 2024.