Chairman of Marvel Entertainment and billionaire Ike Perlmutter has been fired by the Walt Disney Company for complaining the films were too expensive. The company also laid off 7,000 employees in cost cutting measures recently.
Perlmutter told the Wall Street Journal that cost cutting wasn’t the real reason for his retrenchment. It was “merely a convenient excuse to get rid of a longtime executive who dared to challenge the company’s way of doing business. I have no doubt that my termination was based on fundamental differences between my thinking and Disney leadership, because I care about return on investment.”
Perlmutter said that Disney was obsessed with ticket sales. “All they talk about is box office, box office. I care about the bottom line. Only people in Hollywood talk about box office.”
Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion in 2009. Perlmutter was its chairman and is also one of Disney’s largest individual shareholders. He also said that the Disney’s former CEO Bob Chapek was booted out earlier in favour of Bob Iger. Chapek had shared his concerns about high spending as well.
“There was no way to force the issue because the creative people at the Walt Disney company are very powerful. I learned one thing about creative people my whole life. You cannot give them an open credit card,” said Perlmutter.
Perlmutter currently has 30 million shares in Disney. Earlier this year, Perlmutter tried to back activist investor Nelson Peltz who launched a proxy fight against Disney in 2022. He lobbied for Peltz to be on the board to allow a push for spending cuts.
“My experience with any major corporation, when they’re having problems… usually people like Nelson Peltz know how to put it back on track,” he said.
Perlmutter Issued A Statement:
“I have long expected that my working relationship with Disney would end. That is should come as a result of trying to help Disney improve its business should sadden many shareholders as it does me, the company’s largest individual shareholder. Despite my employment termination, I will continue to hold my shares of Disney and continue to seek improvements at the company for the benefit of all stakeholders.”
Anyone who knows me is well aware of my fixation on fiscal discipline to improve efficiency. It is that approach to Disney’s operations that has formed my support for Trian, in seeking to restore the dividend, fix the company’s inflated cost structure, and ensure a successful CEO succession. Trian CEO Nelson Peltz has a long history of improving shareholder returns at many leading consumer businesses. I believe he could have done the same for Disney as a member of its boards. It’s a disappointment for me and I believe many fellow shareholders that he wasn’t welcomed to the board and that it took the threat of a proxy contest for the board and management to begin to act.
My ties to Disney are deep and extend more than 30 years. The Marvel brand which I brought to the company in 2009 is now on of the strongest and most profitable business units in the company, as well as one the best-known entertainment franchises in the world.
I wish only the very best for Disney stakeholders-its employees around the world, its millions of devoted fans and customers, its brilliant creators and contributors, and its many shareholders, like me. I will continue to advocate for actions that secure Disney’s long-term financial health and allow a new generation of management to reverse the trend of falling shareholder equity and return the dividend to its prior level.”
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