Disney reaffirms July dividend and executive pay

[gatour]

The $45M total was last year. Most of that was performance based incentives. Doubt they will meet any of their performance goals this year.

It is funny how performance goals can be modified throughout the year. I all it takes is a vote by the board of directors. Most members of BODs are friendly to the high level executives that actually run the company.

 

[OKW Lover]

It is funny how performance goals can be modified throughout the year. I all it takes is a vote by the board of directors. Most members of BODs are friendly to the high level executives that actually run the company.

Indeed. The Board could set new goals that are tied to the successful recovery of the company from the health crisis. In fact, that would probably be a great thing for the company and the customers.

 

[WDWFan0813]

The title of this thread is very misleading. Nowhere in the article is there a definitive statement about bonuses or the July dividend. The July 2019 dividend was not announced until late June last year. So by that count Disney still has two months to make that decision.

 

[elephant98]

I'm not saying it's right or wrong But to your average person like me it looks bad.

Disney paid all of its employees for 5 weeks after it closed its parks. Then, when it furloughed its 43,000 union employees Disney agreed to pay 100% of their health insurance and continue their other benefits for the duration of the furlough. To your average person like me, this looked good.

 

[gatour]

Indeed. The Board could set new goals that are tied to the successful recovery of the company from the health crisis. In fact, that would probably be a great thing for the company and the customers.

Call me cynical. I think no matter how they "perform", the senior executives will receive a substantial amount of their bonuses.

I have seen too many bonuses granted because there were "too many" market/environmental, blah/blah forces out of the senior executive control. Granted this is not across the board, but it is a prevalent theme.

 

[_19disnA]

^^ I agree, most large companies tend to operate that way and the top execs make the majority of their income from bonuses/incentives and not their fixed salary. Saying they took X% base salary cut is mostly for appearance. Since we have never experienced anything in our lifetime like this, no one knows when everything will get back to 'normal', the prudent thing would be to take measures to conserve cash and overall liquidity. Regardless of how their PR people want to spin this, the overall optics of their announcement doesn't look good.

Stocks will probably continue to bounce around wildly as reports continue to surface of how good/bad things are going and a supposed vaccine/treatment shows promise only to later find out they don't actually work in the real world. Likely that will have far more impact on stock prices compared to the type of plan announced by Disney.

 

[The Jackal]

Disney paid all of its employees for 5 weeks after it closed its parks. Then, when it furloughed its 43,000 union employees Disney agreed to pay 100% of their health insurance and continue their other benefits for the duration of the furlough. To your average person like me, this looked good.

Until you see that Florida has about the lowest unemployment wages in the USA. I think the number they would get was $273 a week. Yet executives get bonus’s like no less than 4 times their salary.

 

[TDSAXX]

Until you see that Florida has about the lowest unemployment wages in the USA. I think the number they would get was $273 a week. Yet executives get bonus’s like no less than 4 times their salary.

Actually it would be $873, with the extra $600/wk.

 

[Disney Bobby]

Actually it would be $873, with the extra $600/wk.

Yeah, I bet some cast members hope it doesn't open until the extra $600 a week runs out. Can't say I blame them.

 

[cobright]

Disney is not about family or magic and truly about their bottom line and stock performance. I have never been a big fan of Universal because I have always bought into the magic of Disney, but the fact that Universal is paying their employees 80% of their pay until May 31st has had me rethinking where my family will be spending future vacations.

It bothers me that I can't find the number of employees Universal Studios Orlando is furloughing. Disney World is furloughing 70k. US O, just says they are furloughing their hourly part timers... how many of their park employees is that?

I remember back in 2014 or so, when an obamacare feature was kicking in that mandated minimum coverage for full time workers, Disney only had about 430 part time employees working in the WDW parks, and they promoted 400 of them to full time so they would qualify for FT health insurance. Universal Studios, conversely, dropped health coverage for their part timers entirely.

They also won't be paying a $15/hr starting wage until 2023, something Disney has agreed would be the case by 2021.

I'm just saying, unless we know how many employees US avoids paying by keeping them part-time, we might hold off on singing their praises.

 

[RamblingMad]

Good article about why it makes sense to cut dividends.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-29/it-s-a-good-time-to-cut-dividends

 

[Chuck S]

Good article about why it makes sense to cut dividends.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-29/it-s-a-good-time-to-cut-dividends

Yes, if it was just private investors a dividend cut would not signal a big problem. The problem with dividend cut s occurs with investment analysts and fund managers. They'd sell in a heartbeat, if they thought something a bit better was out there. You see it all the time when funds dump stock for companies that they perceive as "under performing" or even temporarily in difficulty. It really is all about perceptions, rumors and innuendo in the stock market. It's been that way for years. Remember the people that would by some penny stocks and then f just by posting good stuff about them on the internet the price would go up, they'd sell quickly, and then it would drop back to normal. Stock are mush more of a volatile investment these days than they were until, say 1980 or so, due mostly to internet chat rooms, blogs, instagram, facebook, motley fool, twitter and so forth. ANd then there are those online day traders still around from the 90s.

 

[RamblingMad]

Yes, if it was just private investors a dividend cut would not signal a big problem. The problem with dividend cut s occurs with investment analysts and fund managers. They'd sell in a heartbeat, if they thought something a bit better was out there. You see it all the time when funds dump stock for companies that they perceive as "under performing" or even temporarily in difficulty. It really is all about perceptions, rumors and innuendo in the stock market. It's been that way for years. Remember the people that would by some penny stocks and then f just by posting good stuff about them on the internet the price would go up, they'd sell quickly, and then it would drop back to normal. Stock are mush more of a volatile investment these days than they were until, say 1980 or so, due mostly to internet chat rooms, blogs, instagram, facebook, motley fool, twitter and so forth. ANd then there are those online day traders still around from the 90s.

But this is different. Most businesses aren’t do good right now.

 

[CastAStone]

New York Times today says Disney probably won’t pay their dividend this summer.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/business/media/coronavirus-disney.html

 

[butterscotchcollins]

I'm following along and very curious about today's call. I've got a small amount of $ in my brokerage account to invest as a long-term for-fun holding if the share price takes a hit.

 

[CastAStone]

OFFICIAL: DISNEY WILL NOT PAY JULY DIVIDEND.

Per Q2 Earnings Call