Bob Iger Tells Disney Town Hall Hiring Freeze Still In Effect, No New Acquisitions Planned & Not Merging With Apple

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“There is a lot to do,” Bob Iger told Disney staffers today of the state of the company he now is running again. “Quickly.”

During a town hall at the company’s Burbank HQ heralding his official return. the 71-year-old self-described “boomerang CEO” also said that the hiring freeze his pink-slipped predecessor Bob Chapek announced on November 11 remains in place. Offering his perspective from being outside the company for most of the past year after 47 years at Disney and ABC, Iger also told staffers that rumors of a merger or deal with Apple were just that — “pure speculation.” The man who bought Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Fox for Disney during his previous stint as CEO also noted that the House of Mouse wasn’t looking to make anymore big-ticket acquisitions anytime soon.

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The Apple scenario gained traction nearly two decades ago during the CEO tenure of Steve Jobs, with whom Iger enjoyed a close business and personal relationship. In reality, though, Apple never has pursued major M&A deals, its biggest being the $3 billion purchase of Beats in 2014. What’s more, most of Disney’s traditional holdings likely would be unattractive to a large-scale tech firm, and the size and complexity of any transaction would be exponentially greater than Amazon’s absorption of MGM — a deal that also sparked curiosity about Disney and Apple.

Held in front of a crowd at Disney’s main corporate campus, today’s town hall was also livestreamed for employees around the globe. Taking questions after a breezy, 5-minute introductory speech in which he talked about his time away, the importance of creativity at Disney’s core and being an “eternal optimist,” Iger joshed that his wife pushed him to exit retirement so he wouldn’t contemplate a White House bid.

Credit – DIsney
Credit – DIsney

Coming just over a week after Iger was returned to his perch at the House of Mouse and Chapek was unceremoniously shown the door, the once and current CEO’s attempt to rally the Disney troops arrived at a precarious time for the media giant. On one hand, Disney has the top movie in the world with Black Panther sequel Wakanda Forever. However, this past weekend also saw the company take a nearly $150 million thump with the box office crash and burn of animated feature Strange World. In that context, the December 16 release of James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water poses potentially more big-screen success and financial stress for the studio.

Quickly purging the upper ranks of Disney of the short-lived Chapek’s top lieutenants in the hours after being renamed CEO unexpectedly on November 20, the notoriously successor-uncongenial Iger also has a 24-month deadline to leave the company in stable hands – an effort that floundered from almost the get-go with Chapek.

Somewhat anti-climatic, according to one source, today’s 40-minute town hall found Iger sidestepping Florida’s discriminatory “Don’t Say Gay” law that flummoxed a flip-flopping Chapek earlier this year. “One of the core values of our storytelling is inclusion, and acceptance and tolerance,” the deft Iger stated in response to a staffer question on the topic. Essentially noting that you can’t please all the people all the time, Iger added the matter shouldn’t be a political issue, according to a person in attendance.

A different source noted that there was little talk about streaming, including in the Q&A, which was somewhat surprising given the balancing act between direct-to-consumer and traditional operations is a central strategic issue for Disney in 2023 and beyond. “Most of us feel re-energized by him being back, but we wonder what kinds of cuts or changes may be coming,” the town hall attendee added.

Earlier today, Iger took to Twitter — which he once pondered purchasing for Disney — to put forward an optimistic front as he made his initial return to Burbank HQ:

In that vein, Disney shares initially rallied on the news of Iger’s return over a week ago, but they have come back to earth, slipping 3% today to near $95.69. After Chapek manage to steer the company through the grueling experience of Covid in 2020, the stock ended that year on a high note but has lost 40% in 2022 to date as investors have taken a more clear-eyed look at the company’s troubled financials. Just prior to Iger’s return, it bottomed out at $86.28, its lowest level since early 2020.

The company’s push into streaming, initiated by Iger and continued in Chapek’s run, has squeezed profits and additional economic pressures prompted execs to forecast single-digit increases in revenue and profit for fiscal 2023. That’s a lot lower growth than many Wall Street analysts had previously been forecasting.

Iger also faces the question of whether to redraw the corporate map of how various divisions are organized and report their results to investors. Chapek compressed the company into just two divisions: Parks, Experiences and Products; and Media and Entertainment Distribution. The guiding principle of DMED was Chapek’s centralization of distribution decisions under his now-ousted lieutenant Kareem Daniel. With Iger declaring his intent to undo key elements of the DMED scheme and return P&L control and distribution decisions to key creative execs, it is now widely expected that he will create a new org chart, whose details will come into view in the days and weeks to come.

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