It’s time to wrap the Disney (DIS) CEO succession race and bring a happy ending to one executive castmate.
Because the long drawn out process being led by former Morgan Stanley (MS) CEO and current Disney chair James Gorman is weighing on its stock like a stretch of bad movies.
“We wouldn’t expect the company to address leadership succession during the [upcoming] earnings call, but do anticipate resolution of this matter over the very near-term. While the change is not likely to result in major strategic shifts, we do believe the uncertainty around the process has been an overhang to shares, and see a catalyst in the announcement and any visibility into a smooth transition process,” J.P. Morgan analyst David Karnovsky said in a note on Tuesday.
Disney reports earnings on Feb. 2.
Shares of the entertainment giant are down 1% in the past year as uncertainty on who will replace legendary CEO Bob Iger has persisted. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) has gained 12%.
There are reportedly four internal candidates being considered for the coveted position, which Iger held from 2005 to 2020 before returning in November 2022. Those four are entertainment division co-chiefs Dana Walden and Alan Bergman, parks division head Josh D’Amaro, and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro.
Walden and D’Amaro are rumored to be top contenders.
The search process must be executed flawlessly, following a high-profile bungling last time, when former CEO Bob Chapek was fired in favor of bringing back Iger.
Chapek’s brusque management style famously clashed with many creatives who keep the magic inside of Disney’s content and theme parks.
“You have to have a new CEO that is really good at least managing creativity,” Candle Media CEO Kevin Mayer told me last year at Cannes Lions. “You got to be able to manage creative people and the egos around Hollywood.”
Mayer is a former longtime Iger deputy, who led the launch of Disney+ before a brief stint in 2020 as the CEO of TikTok. He was advising Iger on the CEO search last year but told Yahoo Finance at the time he’s no longer working in that capacity.
Any new Disney CEO is getting a giant media ship contending with considerable industry change.
The newly formed Paramount Skydance (PSKY) led by David Ellison is locked in a battle for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) with streaming king Netflix (NFLX). Netflix is currently winning the fight for WBD with a $72 billion all cash offer. Whoever ends up getting WBD is poised to alter the media landscape yet again, offering a stronger competitor to Disney — especially in films.
