Disney is not having a good year. It started relatively well with ‘Avatar: The Way of Water” dominating the box office and many celebrating the return of Bob Iger. But that upswing did not last long.
After a potential proxy fight for a board seat by Nelson Peltz, the Walt Disney Company has faced restructuring, job cuts, underperforming box office offerings, and declining theme park attendance, their CFO left. Iger is also trying to find “strategic partners” for ESPN and their television services in India. He is reportedly considering selling Disney television assets like ABC, FX, National Geographic and Freeform. This comes on top of Hollywood woes as productions have shut down over actor and writer strikes and Iger is under fire for his comments about those strikes. Yet somehow Disney gave Bob Iger a contract extension.
As a result, Disney’s stock is dropping.
At the close of trading, the stock was sitting at $85.56. If it drops below $84.07, it will beat the previous “year low” price.
Bob Chapek was removed as the CEO for missteps that led to a stock drop, which was not as bad as this, and Iger got a contract extension.
Disney must find ways to boost their theme park attendance, stream subscribers and profits, and increase box office returns. They’ve already put out several discounts for the theme parks, even into peak seasons, and returns on that might not be evident until the next fiscal year. Same for the films released in theaters. So far, they have had success with ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,’ and they may break even on “The Little Mermaid’ but they lost a lot of money on “Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania,’ ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ and ‘Elemental.’ Unless their upcoming films perform exceedingly well, they will not end the year with profits.
It will be interesting to see what Disney does next to try and stop the drop. It will also be interesting to see if the stock falls even lower.
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