Iger holds off Peltz and Perlmutter in shareholders vote

It’s official: Bob Iger and his slate of Disney board members has prevailed in a much-watched shareholders vote that pitted him against a uprising from Nelson Peltz and Ike Perlmutter.

The much-watched battle for the Disney board lasted for months, and saw both sides spend millions on ads and presentations targeting Disney’s many small shareholders. In the end, both Peltz and Jay Rasulo were rejected by voters, as was an alternate slate of board members backed by Blackwell. And it wasn’t that close:

A source says that Iger secured 94 percent of the vote for his board seat. Lagomasino beat Peltz by a margin of about two to one, with the activist securing about 30 percent of the vote for the seat. Rasulo lost his vote by a margin of five to one.

Disney has more retail shareholders than most public companies, which is why the campaign was so public. A source says that retail shareholders voted by a margin of about 75 percent to 25 percent to support Disney’s board picks.

In comments after the voting was closed, Iger said that he wanted to “take a moment to thank our shareholders for your trust and confidence in the Disney board and management and the ambitious strategy we’re implementing across our businesses to build for the future.

Final vote tallies will be released in SEC filings.

The vote ends the often colorful war of words that erupted between Iger and corporate raider Peltz, who was backed by both the stock and the blessings of former Marvel chairman Ike Perlmutter. Many saw the battle as Perlmutter trying to get back at Iger, who fired him last year, with one last swipe.

On Twitter, the most used meme was Thanos.

It’s definitely a huge win (and relief) for Iger. As industry pundit Matthew Belloni wrote in his Puck newsletter over the weekend, the tussle all went back to his decision to fire gadfly Perlmutter, which did backfare in some ways.

But in round two atop Disney, Iger decided he no longer needed to indulge his tormentor. Should Bob have just sucked it up and tolerated Ike for the good of the company? After all, Iger just resolved the whole Florida “Don’t Say Gay” fight, including backing off the litigation over Disney’s special governance, even though he knew Gov. Ron DeSantis would go on television and declare victory.

An ego bruise, perhaps, but it doesn’t make strategic sense for Disney to be litigating in Florida when it should be growing the parks business in the state. Similarly, while it might have felt good to shit-can Perlmutter, given the company’s struggling share price last year, it was probably foreseeable that Ike might take his 30 million or so shares and set up a spite store in Palm Beach with someone like Peltz. Which, of course, is exactly what happened. So… whose fault is that?

Iger still faces the huge decision of who to name as his successor – when he named Bob Chapek iback in 2020. it didn’t end too well, and Iger’s halting approach to finding someone to carry on after him is seen as the greatest weakness for him – one which Peltz used as leverage for his board run.

But that run has ended ….for now. Dont ever, ever count Ike out. As long as he’s breathing, he could be back…he’s a real life supervillain in that way.

Disney stock closed down nearly 4% after the results were announced, showing a lot of people still think it’s going in the wrong direction. Time will tell, but for now, Disney Bob has prevailed.