As Disney’s closely watched proxy fight barrels toward the finish line with shareholders casting their votes on April 3, critics of CEO Bob Iger have launched a fuselage of attacks, criticizing Iger’s track record and his plans for turning around Disney. But amidst widespread interest from non-business audiences, these criticisms often drown out the facts and fail to see the whole story before them.
Here are five persistent but false myths about Iger’s track record and plans for resurrecting Disney, debunked.
The facts clearly show that Disney stock has significantly outperformed virtually all its pure play media and entertainment peers during both of Iger’s stints as CEO. Disney’s 579% total shareholder returns during Iger’s first term as CEO, from 2005 to 2020, far outpaced that of key rivals Warner Brothers’ 244%, Fox’s 104%, and Paramount’s 49% during that same timeframe. And since Iger returned for his second stint as CEO in November 2022, Disney’s 27% total shareholder returns have far outpaced all its major media rivals who are in the red, with Warner Brothers Discovery’s -22%, Fox’s -6%, and Paramount’s -40% returns. No media and entertainment peer CEO can boast of such consistent outperformance across two decades.
Disney critics point out that the company’s stock has fallen about 40% from its peak levels of nearly $200 in 2021, ignoring the fact that Bob Chapek, not Iger, was the CEO in 2021. It was Chapek who oversaw the collapse of Disney stock from $200 to $85 when he was removed in November 2022. Furthermore, Disney critics point out that Disney stock has underperformed big tech platform companies such as Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Netflix, but they disregard the fact that much of these companies’ value derives from their non-media businesses and that Disney has not, and will never be, a pure play big tech company.
Critics protest that Iger overpays every time a deal is struck and insist that his failed M&A track record is a reason to depose Iger as CEO. But not only is there zero financial evidence to suggest this is true, a careful analysis of the facts........