Get Your Checkbooks Ready, Stake In Disney Park About to Go Up For Sale

In America, The Walt Disney Company is having its own problems with activist investors. Nelson Peltz is launching his second proxy war against the Disney Company’s Board, seeking two seats to change Disney’s direction. But it’s not just Disney’s American interests that are facing a proxy war. A proxy war currently happening in Japan could cause a portion of Tokyo Disneyland to be put up for sale.

Mitsui Fudosan is Japan’s largest property management company and currently owns $3.6 billion worth of Oriental Land, the company that runs the Tokyo Disneyland Resort. The American investment firm Elliott Management has demanded that Mitsui Fudosan launch a $6.74 billion buyback plan and sell its investment in Oriental Land.

Much like The Walt Disney Company, Mitsui Fodosan is facing pressure from investors to return high dividends and continue to grow the stock price. This is highly unusual in the Japanese market.

Jesper Koll, expert director at Monex Group, told CNBC.

The pressure on corporate Japan is now relentless — lazy balance sheets will no longer be tolerated. Even previously untouchable elite companies — Mitsui Fudosan is the undisputed leader in both local and global Japan-led real estate development — are now targeted…Whether the proceeds of a sell-down should be used for a share buyback (as Elliot demands), or whether Mitsui’s leadership team should become a more aggressive investor in for-future-growth projects is the real question.

Mitsui Fudosan currently owns $3.6 billion worth of Oriental Land, about 5.4 percent of the company. But Koll argues that the property management company owning a portion of a theme park makes little sense and that money could be used for a buyback, as Elliott Management suggests.

Tokyo Disneyland has seen a resurgence since the COVID-19 pandemic shut the theme park down. According to reports, the Tokyo Disneyland Resort saw a 40 percent increase in attendance during the first half of last year.

Those numbers should increase this year with the opening of Fantasy Springs in Tokyo DisneySea, which includes Frozen Kingdom, Rapunzel’s Forest, and Peter Pan’s Neverland.

With the news of this proxy fight, Mitsui Fodosan saw its share price jump 11.8 percent, while Oriental Land saw its share price fall 2.2 percent.

Elliott Management Fund sees this as the best move for shareholders and long-term sustainability.

While investors may be happy, it puts the future ownership of Tokyo Disneyland into question, especially as Tokyo DisneySea is about to open its largest-ever expansion.

Do you have the cash to buy a portion of Tokyo Disneyland? Let us know in the comments.