Bob Iger, the new CEO of Walt Disney Company dismisses the merger rumor. He, on Monday’s meeting with employees, said that the rumor surfacing of Disney’s rumor with Apple is pure speculation.
He added that the focus of the company is rooted in cost-cutting and internal restructuring. He assured that the reports of Apple or some other mega buyer buying into the company, or any other mergers are factless. This was said as a reply to the question of an employee.
In the meeting, he conveyed that to not expect any deal-related headlines and that he feels comfortable with the set of assets that they have that would serve the company. He recognized the concern regarding Disney’s television networks ESPN and ABC which are facing impactful and increasing revenue decline. This was a discussion at the previous quarter’s earnings report by the executives during the cable subscribers’ cord-cutting.
He said that if you look long-term at the future of linear TV, it would be wise to be skeptical or pessimistic about it and that he is not aware of how this thing is being manifested in the company. The spinning off of ESPN was pressed by Daniel Loeb, the manager of Hedge Fund.
On the end of the tenure of Bob Chapek on Sunday, Bob Iger was brought back by Disney. Bob Iger is considered as the man who globally powered Disney by pursuing brands such as 21st Century Fox, Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm. He had stepped down 2 years ago, after shouldering the company for a long 15 years.
The stature of Disney was getting fluctuated with the complex economic grapplings and the raising graph of inflation. Disney has pending layoffs, and the shares are down by 40 percent. This is considerably troubling the balance sheets of the investors who relied on Disney for their portfolios.
In the recent quarterly report, Disney published a profit and revenue which was much lower than the already expected lower rates. The 4th fiscal quarterly report came out two weeks ago. The quarter also stated a $1.5 billion loss in the direct-to-consumer division of the company.
This could be cited as because of the company’s prioritizing on the growth of subscribers. The introduction of the lower-cost service tier ads and a price increase in Disney+ both executed under Bob Chapek could be cited as the reasons.
The board ended the term of Bob Chapek, a week before. Towards the end of the tenure, Chapek had instituted a hiring freeze. Iger is going along with the freeze in consideration of the market disappointment that Disney is still in. There are no notable alerts regarding the layoffs proposed by Chapek.
Iger has promised Disney’s creative team a new focus on creativity. The creative team was assumed to be discontented by Chapek’s leadership, yet he had approved a huge investment flow to the unprofitable streaming content.
He stood neutral to the company’s plan on shifting its theme park designers from California to Florida. But he continued the company’s support and commitment to the LGBTQ+ rights movements and activism. This was a domain in which Chapek was unsuccessful by not opposing a law in Florida limiting the discussions regarding sexual and gender identities in public schools. He eventually apologized for it.
The previous week Disney had fired two major lieutenants of Chapek. Christine McCarthy, the CFO who evolved as a potential figure in the leader change at Disney had taken her concern about Chapek directly to the board.
Reportedly Iger also has thoughts on reorganizing Disney’s Digital Media and Entertainment Distribution segment, that centralized content budgeting under Chapek.
Chapek has agreed to a three-year contract with Disney and is expected to get a golden parachute valuing a minimum of $20 million. He is assumed to be positioned as the company’s CEO until the end of 2024.
Read More:-
President Biden Asks Congress Once More To Prevent Train Strike
