- As they prepare for next week's annual meeting, Walt
Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS - News)'s Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Eisner
and fellow Disney board members are staring down a barrel, with angry shareholders
itching to get at the trigger, Friday's Wall Street Journal reported.
-
- Disney now concedes that well over 30% of its shareholders
could wind up withholding their support from Mr. Eisner, the culmination
of a brutal three- month campaign against Disney's chief of nearly two
decades. The effort began with the resignation of Roy E. Disney and Stanley
Gold from the Disney board. The two ex-directors, both highly critical
of Mr. Eisner's performance want shareholders to withhold support from
Mr. Eisner and three other Disney directors at the annual meeting.
-
- But during the past two weeks, other groups, from proxy
advisers to institutional shareholders, have piled in with their own reasons
for voting against Mr. Eisner. Some, like Institutional Shareholder Services
in Rockville, Md., want Disney to split the chairman and chief executive
roles. Others, like the California Public Employees Retirement System,
say they have lost confidence in Mr. Eisner's leadership. Thursday, still
more groups signaled their intention to withhold support from him, including
the California State Teachers' Retirement System and the New York State
Common Retirement Fund.
-
- The snowballing discontent will leave Disney directors
facing tough choices if, as expected, a sizable chunk of shareholders oppose
Mr. Eisner's re-election to the board. The range of options includes dumping
Mr. Eisner; splitting the chairman and chief executive roles, leaving Mr.
Eisner with diminished power; or choosing not to bow to the pressure for
now, because doing so would weaken the company's ability to maximize value
in the face of Comcast Corp.'s unsolicited all-stock bid for Disney.
-
- Wall Street Journal Staff Reporters Bruce Orwall and
Joann S. Lublin contributed to this report.
-
-
- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/dowjones/20040227/bs_dowjones/2
- 00402270043000027
|
