The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) wants to promote current director and ex-Nike boss Mark Parker to head its board at 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, who rose from being a footwear designer to Nike CEO and then executive chairman over four decades at the sportswear company, 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 also appointed to the board at London-listed Unilever 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 has subsequently seen its share price climb to 4,194p, though star UK fund manager Terry Smith this week criticised Peltz's hasty appointment after his £25bn Fundsmith fund had suggestions ignored by the board for several years.
Smith had a mixed review of Peltz's history as an activist: "He at least seems to have the sense to become involved in good businesses which need some improvement, whereas some activists pick on poor businesses and all they can hope to achieve is a better-run bad business. Where we have seen him involved in companies we have owned we have sometimes agreed with and admired his contribution — as in the operational improvements which accompanied his time at Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) — and sometimes not — as when he promoted the idea of splitting PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) into separate drinks and snacks businesses."
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.