Nelson Peltz of Trian Fund Management is allegedly vying for two or three Walt Disney Company board seats. Last year Peltz tried to go for a Disney Board seat ahead of the Walt Disney Company annual meeting, but then stepped back when CEO, Bob Iger, announced massive cutbacks at the company.
Recently, Disney announced two new board seats for Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman and former Sky TV’s Jeremy Darroch in what many see as an attempt to stop Peltz and other investors from trying to gain seats.
Trian claims that before the Board member announcement, Disney offered to set up a meeting with their board for Peltz but told them they would not allow Trian or Peltz to join the board. After this, Peltz claims he reinstated his proxy fight with the House of Mouse.
Now Disney is claiming that this is all being done for revenge after Ike Perlmutter was one of the cuts made during the massive cullings to save the company money. Interestingly, Perlmutter had previously butted heads with both Iger and MCU head Kevin Feige over costs and film choices. He is also close friends with Peltz, and Perlmutter backed Peltz in the first proxy fight with Disney. Then he was let go.
Disney now admits they did fire him but claims that this attack is for a personal agenda against Iger. Honestly, it seems like he has a reason to have a “personal agenda” against Iger, and Disney “terminated” him after he backed Peltz. As far as Marvel is concerned, given how terrible Marvel is now, maybe he had a point.
Here is the statement from Disney:
“Mr. Peltz, in partnership with Isaac Perlmutter, a former Disney executive, intends to take its case to shareholders. Mr. Perlmutter owns 78% of the shares that Mr. Peltz claims beneficial ownership of, or more than 25 million of the 33 million shares. This dynamic is relevant to assessing Mr. Peltz and any other nominees he may put forth as directors, as Mr. Perlmutter was terminated from his employment by Disney earlier this year and has voiced his longstanding personal agenda against Disney’s CEO, Robert A. Iger, which may be different than that of all other shareholders.”
Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley is the company that Comcast chose to do their valuation for Hulu, hoping for a favorable price. Then the CEO, soon to be Executive Chairman, suddenly ends up on their competition’s Board of Directors? Seems like that could be interpreted as a conflict of interest. It doesn’t mean anything unfair was done, but the optics aren’t great.
Now, it seems Peltz and Trian are going for two to three board seats as a result. They will be going to the shareholders directly to discuss their issues.
After Bob Iger’s recent announcements about new board members and issues at Disney, the stock has fallen and is now at about $92 per share.
What do you think? Comment and let us know.
Source: CNBC
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