Indepth and investigative article regarding Bob Iger & Bob Chapek's fall out. Disney's future looming

[Tedwash]

This is a lenthly but outstanding article posted 3/20/2022. It takes a deep dive into the falling out between Bob Iger and Bob Chapek during Iger's sucession. The Disney staff are concerned with Chapek's direction of the company.

It's quite a long read but well worth it. Company culture eats corporate strategy for breakfast everytime. Right now Disney's corporate culture is erroding under Chapek.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/20/disney-ceo-chapek-iger-falling-out.html

 

[spiders]

Disney‘s stock performance was abysmal last year. It doesn’t seem too many people are happy whether you’re a customer, an employee or a shareholder.

 

[old lady]

Why hasn’t anything be done?

 

[LuvOrlando]

If Iger is gone why is this about him? Odd, no?
I always thought Iger was stepping to the side to avoid animosity if things went south during 2020-21 so the new guy, Chapek, looked to me to be a pre-emptive scapegoat and ran with it instead of taking the hit, good for him. Disney now feels way more forward thinking with how it's been handling female roles, and we are 51% of the population so it's quite a big thing. Originally, the Disney+ icon options were on the sexist side, the characters weren't always that representative of the real world while the new culture is pulling strong females who don't need saving more out front, which I like. The female positioning was getting antiquey and stale, I love the princesses but that being the only flavor of female represented was a bit much.

I liked the way the parks ran under Eisner back when the whole thing was a pleasant show. Under Iger, as a guest and fan, I felt very alienated by the strategies which plainly aimed at newbies over lifers, all my collections vanished (so many just got ruined by lack of regard) and everything felt so sanitized and focused on timeshares and dining plans instead of rides and the experience. Really, I could take it or leave it and plainly the parks felt the same about me. While I haven't been back I do get a general sense of a shift back towards Eisner's fans first philosophy with the way the Star Wars series have been handled, with the stories shown from a fans point of view. I hope it's not all going to take a step back, I'm just not into it if that's the case.

The stock was bad last year because people weren't vacationing, this has nothing to do with leadership because Disney and every other travel and leisure stock had the same hit.

 

[spiders]

The stock was bad last year because people weren't vacationing, this has nothing to do with leadership because Disney and every other travel and leisure stock had the same hit.

Disney went from $180 in January 2021 to $155 in January 2022. Comcast, American, Delta, Carnival, Royal….all of them at least remained stagnant or up. Travel was very much alive in summer 2021 through the end of the year and Disney may have a lot of travel in it’s revenue but they are definitely a media company as well.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Disney went from $180 in January 2021 to $155 in January 2022. Comcast, American, Delta, Carnival, Royal….all of them at least remained stagnant or up. Travel was very much alive in summer 2021 through the end of the year and Disney may have a lot of travel in it’s revenue but they are definitely a media company as well.

Have the resorts been at 100% capacity?
If the answer is no, resorts were not at full capacity, one can assume the business was aware of a disruption, acted responsibly, and this points to recent circumstances being the cause of the abrupt change.
If the answer is yes, resorts were at full capacity and yet there were losses, then it might be leadership... muddy but possible.

Answers should be there in park attendance, food sales & resort capacities.

Media is important but Disney+ is still in it's startup phase and probably still very costly, it takes a while for such ventures to turn a solid profit. Yes, they made a lot in new subscribers but the draws like Mandalorian are also costly, there is probably an expected curve but I don't know what it is, someone does or they wouldn't have initiated the enterprise.

 

[tcufrog]

There were also hits in motion pictures, cruises, and Adventures By Disney because of COVID.

 

[bcla]

I don't know how long the culture will keep up. I guess there was a ton of discussion about the American IT workers who had to train their foreign replacements. But it seems that moving most of Imagineering to Florida was designed to basically eliminate jobs that wouldn't need to be replaced. Also - the elimination of nearly all physical Disney Stores.

 

[Micca]

Chapek can only fulfill the role he was destined for with the adoption of a hair-less cat.

 

[GAN]

Disney went from $180 in January 2021 to $155 in January 2022. Comcast, American, Delta, Carnival, Royal….all of them at least remained stagnant or up. Travel was very much alive in summer 2021 through the end of the year and Disney may have a lot of travel in it’s revenue but they are definitely a media company as well.

It's not a reach to say the stock was affected because of the change, and the way the transistion played out, that impacted the performance. Not many companies in great standing do well after a significant change like this one. There is really no surprise with the stock price ...I mean, it could have been even worse given the timing.