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Robert Iger was named November 21 as chief executive of the Walt Disney Co., resuming the role he held for 15 years and leaving just one year ago to Bob Chapek, who is leaving the company amid disappointing results.
Accustomed to entertaining millions, Disney now has its own plot with two “Bobs” as protagonists: the entrepreneurial executive who, exhausted from achieving success for 15 years, decides to leave the company… and a successor who reinstates him barely a year later. .
Like the good son, Robert ‘Bob’ Iger came home. And as it was his departure, he made his re-entry through the front door, to the applause of Wall Street, which prompted a 10% appreciation in the company’s stock just minutes after the start of operations on Monday.
For years, Iger was lauded in the entertainment industry for leading acquisitions ranging from Star Wars to Pixar and 21st Century Fox to Marvel and for challenging Netflix’s streaming dominance with the launch of Disney+. Until he gave up the turn to Bob Chapek.
Chapek has overseen Disney since February 2020, when he began one of the most challenging periods in the company’s history. And, although he was with Iger until the end of 2021, that transition was anything but smooth, according to whispers on Wall Street.
“We thank Bob Chapek for his service to Disney during his long career, including leading the company through the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic.”stated, diplomatically, the president of the board of directors, Susan Arnold.
“The board has concluded that as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation, Bob Iger is uniquely positioned to lead the company through this crucial period.”
“It is with an incredible sense of gratitude and humility, and I must admit, a little in awe, that I write to you tonight with the news that I am returning to The Walt Disney Company as CEO,” Iger, 71, wrote in a statement. email to employees on Sunday.
Chapek’s ‘disenchantment’
While Disney’s stock market value soared fivefold under Bob Iger between 2005 and 2020, Bob Chapek’s two years have been marked by political clashes, missteps and weak financial performance that investors have punished with a 40% decline in the value of the shares so far this year.
Less than a month ago Disney released its fiscal year 2022 results which ended in September well below the Stock Market’s expectations in both earnings and revenue. The firm’s shares fell 12% to a 20-year low when the report came out.
The streaming service, which includes Disney+, racked up losses of $1.4 billion in the latest quarter, more than double the loss a year earlier. Even so, this division expects to turn a profit in 2024.
During the Chapek administration, the company also found itself embroiled in a public feud with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis after the state enacted a measure banning instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary schools until third degree, a rule critics have dubbed “don’t say gay” and on which Chapek is accused of being late in reacting.
Bob Chapek stood against Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act.
Disney stockholders just showed him the door.
Because that’s what you get when you stand against PARENTS and come for our children.
—James Bradley (@JamesBradleyCA) November 21, 2022
Months later, Chapek fired Peter Rice, chairman of Disney General Entertainment Television, one of the most respected television executives in the industry. The firing stunned Hollywood and drew new criticism from investors about his leadership.
And while it was highly unusual for conflicts at Disney to spill over into the public sphere, last year a fight with one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Scarlett Johansson, sued the company over ‘Black Widow’, made world headlines.
Johansson’s potential earnings were tied to the box office performance of the 2021 Marvel movie. But the company decided to release it simultaneously in theaters and on its streaming service Disney+ for a $30 rental.
Bob Iger’s step this time will be fleeting. The executive promised to stay for two years with the commitment to straighten the path of the world’s largest entertainment company and find, this time, a successor that will convince its shareholders.
With AP and Reuters
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