Sorry, Nelson. In fact, the entire board of Disney has
been reelected by what they're calling a substantial margin that
just called out by General Counsel Horatio Gutierrez at the
annual
meeting of the company. So all 12 Disney directors have
been reelected.
Obviously, it is a victory for Disney,
a defeat for trying, which had been seeking 2 seats
on the board of directors.
They haven't gone through numbers as of yet,
but there are the some that I can provide
via sources in terms of
due to overall votes and how many were allocated to
various directors.
First of all, roughly I'm told 70 or so percent,
perhaps a bit more than that
voted. So roughly 70% of the outstanding shares were voted
and of those for example,
94% of the votes or those shares voted were voted
in favor of Bob Iger,
the company CEO, the
Universal proxy. It's different than what we used to sue,
you know sort of more like an election.
It used to be you've basically it's just the top
12 vote getters
are on the board and in this case they were
all Disney directors.
Pelts was targeting
Marielena Lagamacino who goes by mail.
Sources tell me she received
63% of the votes that were voted,
the shares that were voted
and Peltz received 31%, so she more than doubled his
total.
Obviously defeat is not something that trying to seem that
often and it's proxy fights.
The last one that I can recall was when they
lost in DuPont.
Of course, they came back not that long after and
declared victory when Ellen Coleman left the company.
But in that case, the margin of victory was far,
far closer for DuPont then is the case here
again, Eiger gets 94% and there's sort of the important
one because again,
Pulse was challenging for that particular seat saying,
hey, vote the 1st, 10 and then vote me and
vote Jay Rasulo.
And he was going after Lagamacino,
he didn't win. She got 63 percent,
31% for Peltz. And finally,
you know, retail we've talked about because they do comprise
a fairly substantial number of the overall shares.
But my understanding is here
they didn't show up that much,
7 or 8% of the total vote was retail shareholders.
Of those retail shareholders who voted,
D again, numbers I'm hearing are as many as
75% went with management or with all the Disney directors.
So a significant victory for Disney over trying.
It sounds like a landslide,
David. I mean 94% of votes were in favor of
Iger.
Did we expect it to be that big of a
gap?
Well you know it wasn't like Peltzer challenging Iger and
saying it's either him or me.
So the votes he didn't get were withheld.
But it's that's a significant
number saying yes hello we we're we're happy with your
performance.
I think you know the the the key one though
really is is the lady at the bottom there Mary
Elena Lagamacino who goes by Mel.
The fact that she more than doubled
Peltz's number, at least in these numbers that I'm getting
right now.
So again, that you know,
it's over, over and done with and they move on.
I move on to go to Los Angeles so I
can sit down with Bob Iger tomorrow morning.
Can't wait. We get there.
Can't wait for that. That'll be a good one.
You know, David, you say we all get to move
on.
But he also said that Nelson Peltz isn't used to
this kind of defeat.
And I remember when he called in to your show
live and spoke to you and Jim
and Carl and said that,
you know, he was in favor,
that Bob Iger was successfully turning the company around only
to go back again.
Is this truly over or is there more that Nelson
Peltz could do here?
Could he come back? It's it's it's hard to imagine
he could come back after losing a proxy fight and
losing and it losing it definitively.
And we should point out we've got a statement from
try and saying they're disappointed with the outcome.
They greatly appreciate all the support and dialogue they've had
with Disney stakeholders and proud of the impact they've had
in refocusing,
they say, the company on value creation and good governance.
And to your point, of course,
they had engaged with the company
right after Iger had come back.
It was brief in terms of how long that fight
lasted because to your point,
it was when I interviewed Iger last February,
I believe it was. And then Peltz literally followed up
minutes later by saying we're done,
but we're gonna hang around and watch and then only
to come back of course.
Yeah, this was a much more bitter and long for
long hard fought struggle as you well know
D Yeah, but Disney ends up victorious.