Disney‘s annual meeting on March 6 could become interesting after two leading proxy advisory firms — Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis — recommended that shareholders defy the board on three resolutions up for a vote. The companies support a resolution that would stop Bob Iger from serving both as the board’s chairman and the company’s CEO. The firms also support a proposal that would make it easier for shareholders to nominate directors, and want investors — in an advisory vote — to oppose the company’s executive compensation plan. ISS notes that Iger’s $40.2M package for the fiscal year that ended in September, a 20.3% raise, was based in part on comparisons with CEO pay at other media companies, including some family controlled ones such as News Corp and Viacom. They “tend to be outliers compared to widely-held public companies” and, with their family ties, probably wouldn’t try to recruit Iger. Disney also “does not provide target goals for the various financial measures” used to compute Iger’s pay. With those concerns, having Iger also serve as chairman might lead to questions about the board’s “willingness and ability to provide independent oversight over management.”
Glass Lewis shares the concerns as it rates the overall structure of Disney’s compensation as “poor.” The wide disparity between Iger’s pay and other top execs “may indicate that the CEO retains excessive power or authority, thus making any future transitions following his departure more difficult and inefficient.” And giving him the two top jobs “concentrates too much oversight in a single person and inhibits the independent oversight intended to be provided by the board on behalf of shareholders.”
Related: Disney Shareholders Group To Vote Against Iger And Pay Plan At Annual Meeting
Disney counters that Iger deserves much of the credit for the company’s strong stock performance. “The facts are irrefutable,” it says. “Disney delivered record net income, revenue and earnings per share and exceptional shareholder returns in fiscal 2012. Total shareholder return for the year was 76.3%, compared to 30.2% for the S&P 500.” Calling Disney’s performance during the CEO’s tenure “nothing short of spectacular,” the company adds that shareholders saw a total return of 139% which “dramatically exceeds the S&P 500’s return of 36%, and 15% growth in diluted EPS on a compounded basis. Disney has delivered results that speak for themselves.”


Pay him whatever he wants as long as the stock keeps climbing. Welcome to America.
I’m surprised there’s any argument over whether a CEO should also occupy the chairman-of-the-board’s seat. It would seem counterintuitive to allow that.
The stock has climbed, but the dividend yield isn’t as high as it could be, and Disney arguably acquired a lot of its growth (also, check out how other media stocks have fared). Iger never really innovated. And he has done poorly with the interactive division. While it didn’t take a genius to decide to buy Marvel and Lucasfilm and Pixar, he could show some genius by fixing the interactive growth prospects. Perhaps the Infinity game will be the saving grace, who knows. Iger could also show genius by bringing movie budgets down and figuring out how to convince stars to work for less money and no participation. That would be a trick that would be much more valuable than buying Pixar et al.
Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm and Marvel movies have all been known for their quality (some would differ on Star Wars prequels but that’s not the argument).
Why would you force down the budgets of movies that are profitable and could damage your brand?
John Carter cost a lot of money to make and it bombed (didn’t lose Disney too much in the end so it was worth the risk when you look at the potential sequels) but it wasnt a terrible movie, the quality was there and so it didn’t damage the brand in the least.
Compare this to dreamworks animation, they make rise of the guardians a mediocre movie and they need to restructure the entire division due to how poorly it performed.
Disney need to pump big money in to their movies. If the movie fails then they loose some money, but if its a success then they have theme park rides, games and countless other merchandise to make a killing from.
That is why they make big budget films and why they need to continue to. Bob Iger deserves what he is payed and he deserves to head the board, a questionable CEO shouldn’t sit on the board but Bob Iger is anything but.