Proactive Investors - The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) will appoint ex-Nike executive chairman Mark Parker to head its board after its next annual meeting, as it attempts to ward off activist investor Nelson Peltz.
Peltz was confirmed to be going for a role on the company’s board by his asset management firm Trian Fund Management, which described Disney as being “in crisis” given its recent “disappointing” performance.
Trian said it would file a "preliminary proxy statement" on Thursday for Peltz’s election to the board.
Disney has moved to block his appointment though, commenting: “The board does not endorse the Trian Group nominee, and recommends that shareholders not support its nominee, and instead vote for all the company’s nominees.”
Parker will replace Susan Arnold as non-executive chairman after Disney’s next annual meeting, which does not yet have a date, with the board dropping from 12 to 11 members.
Trian suggested a series of issues that Peltz would work to fix at Disney, including “a lack of overall cost discipline” and “minimal shareholder engagement,” also outlining that it had a US$900mln stake in the company.
Disney saw its share price fall by almost 40% last year, amid a tough period for its streaming service post-COVID.
Peltz was appointed to Unilever’s board in May last year after Trian built a 1.5% stake in the company.
He suggested he aimed to aid the company back from the brink of sell-offs or a break-up after investors began pressuring it for change when its share price hit a five-year low of 3,328p in March.
Unilever (LON:ULVR) has subsequently seen its share price climb to 4,194p.
Streaming services had seen a boom during the pandemic, due to lockdowns keeping people at home, with the industry having seen the equivalent of five years’ worth of growth between 2020 and 2021, according to PwC
PwC suggested that growth would slow in the sector from 2022, however, but should still be “strong”.
Disney saw its share price jump in after-hours trading, rising from US$96.3 at yesterday's close to US$97.9 four hours later.