Disney Takeover Update: Billionaire Investor Promises Not To Fire Bob Iger

The future of the Walt Disney Company will be determined by a momentous shareholder vote on April 3, but the billionaire investor trying to seize control says that he has no intention of firing CEO Bob Iger.

For months now, Disney shareholders have been wooed by Nelson Peltz, the co-founder of Trian Fund Management, a vastly wealthy hedge fund with a reputation for forcing its way onto the board of directors of various companies to enact its own agendas. That is exactly what is happening with the Mouse House now, as Peltz and former Disney CFO Jay Rasulo have been nominated for seats on the board by Trian and have made their intention to change the direction of the company as they see fit.

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It has been long assumed that a big part of that change would be to get rid of Bob Iger, of whom Nelson Peltz has been highly critical. After the CEO’s recent earnings call in which he announced a number of financial gains and future plans, Peltz rebutted that, basically, all of that was a flim-flam distraction and “throwing spaghetti against a wall.”

However, in a virtual town hall meeting for Restore the Magic (the Trian campaign to elect its nominees), both Nelson Peltz and Jay Rasulo firmly denied that they have any plans to fire Bob Iger if they are able to gain control of the board of directors. The moderator of the town hall asked the pair directly, “The question for you is, do Nelson and Jay want to fire Bob Iger?”

Peltz responded in the negative, saying, “No, and I wanna put an exclamation point. I have had several proxy fights. I’ve had disagreements with management teams…Never once, never once, did I come in to fire the CEO.” For his part, Jay Rasulo denied that he had any antagonistic relationship with Bob Iger, saying, “I worked 15 years alongside Bob. I don’t think we ever had a cross word. I can work with Bob.”

The duo’s relatively amenable attitude toward Bob Iger is a new tactic for Trian, which has been remarkably aggressive in their campaign for the upcoming Disney proxy battle. This could possibly be due to the increasing surge of support for Bob Iger, who has seen his image with the company slowly improving in recent days (though not with everyone). In particular, letters of support for the CEO from the grandchildren of Roy Disney have likely done a lot to sway shareholders to Iger, meaning that Peltz and Rasulo have more incentive to play nice with the executive.

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It cannot be said that the current Disney board of directors is extending the same olive branch toward the Trian Partners nominees. The board is running its own parallel campaign to reach out to stockholders, which has directly attacked Rasulo by stating that “his analog perspective is not relevant to the challenges of today’s digital media landscape.”

In less than a month, shareholders will decide whether they want to stay the course with Bob Iger and the Disney board or get on board with the new plans of Nelson Peltz. But, as time grows shorter, it seems the difference between the two might not be as much as was thought.

Do you think Bob Iger will be fired if Trian succeeds in taking over the Disney board? Let us know in the comments below!

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