The New Disney CEO Will Be Worse?

1 week ago 5

14NovNovember 14, 2024

Disney Chairman of the Board James Gorman’s search committee apparently has orders from Bob Iger. “Find someone who will make the bastards miss me!”

The internal Candidates at Disney haven’t been all that promising. Jason Pitaro the Chairman of ESPN has done fine with his division but he doesn’t have the connections he’d need to reestablish the broken key talent links in the entertainment industry, nor does he have experience dealing with the ridiculous egos and power trips of show business. Sports brings him close but it’s whole different level in Hollywood. And he knows nothing about theme parks.

Josh D’Amaro the chairman of Parks and Experiences is the sentimental favorite but the only thing he does bring to the party is a knowledge of theme parks.

Dana Walden is certainly Iger’s favorite but due to Trump’s re-election. her dabbling in politics will now weigh heavily against her due to her backing the wrong pony.

Alan Bergman is probably the best qualified of the lot, which honestly isn’t high praise.

I will say that Bergman is lightyears better than the current outside favorite for the job.

Which is Andrew Wilson. Yes, that Andrew Wilson the current CEO of EA Games.

I’ll give you a moment to collect your jaw. I know I needed one.

I’m trying to come up with positives for Wilson as Disney’s CEO and after a great deal of mental struggle I’ve come up with a couple. What Disney needs more than anything right now is an outsider as a turnaround CEO. Perhaps from Europe, someone who isn’t going to be sweating at the possibility of not getting invites to the best parties anymore.

Wilson is an outsider, he’s got that going for him. He is also an expert at shutting down studios while locking down IPs so that no one else can use them while the company exists as an entity.

That’s about it. With Wilson at the helm Disney might take away the title of most hated company on Earth from EA, but I don’t think that’s a real plus.

However, about a year ago there was some serious talk of Disney buying EA Games. Now at the time I was quick to dismiss it (perhaps too quick) as stray voltage Iger was deploying to draw attention away from an upcoming earnings call. The thing is I’ve learned a lot more about Iger in the past year.

He has always had a bug up his ass about being a big wheel in the tech industry. I think it started life when he was wooing Steve Jobs into doing something he had every intention of doing anyway, (namely selling Pixar to Disney). Lately he’s been trying to convince people to think of Disney as a tech company. There’s no reason to do so but that’s what he’s trying to base his comp package on.

And of course the triumvirate of evil, State Street, Vanguard and Black Rock own thirty percent total of each company. If Andrew Wilson is in the mix for CEO of Disney then it’s possible that the snake may swallow the elephant. A smaller company buying out a larger one has happened before if there is enough interested outsider financing trying to make the deal happen.

For example Warren Buffet was instrumental in Capital Cities buyout of the ABC television network. This was where Iger first came to the attention of Buffet. I only mention this because Berkshire Hathaway has been showing a great deal of interest in EA of late.

On the off chance that this did happen it would be Disney being on the losing side of take over. There would have to be a lot of assets sold off and lot of people fired.

Mind you I’m not saying this will be good for Disney. Andrew Wilson was the guy who signed off on this thing…