Activist investment firm ValueAct Capital Management has agreed to support director nominees at an upcoming shareholder meeting as Walt Disney Co. seeks to fight off a proxy fight from Nelson Peltz.
A press release shared with the Post on Wednesday said Disney shared confidential trade information with ValueAct and also communicated with the San Francisco-based company “on strategic matters, including meetings with the Disney board and management team.” We have signed a contract to discuss.
Disney Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger said, “ValueAct Capital has a track record of collaborating and collaborating with portfolio companies, and Co-CEO Mason Morfitt has “It's been a very constructive conversation over the years.” News.
In recent months, ValueAct has acquired a significant stake in Disney.
The exact size of ValueAct's Mouse House stake is unknown, but the activist investor expects Disney's stock to trade between $120 and $190 per share, with a That's well above $90.35 per share, he said.
Representatives for Disney and ValueAct did not immediately respond to The Post's requests for comment.
Disney's deal with ValueAct comes in a battle for two seats on the company's board of directors and rival activist investor Trian Fund Management, led by Peltz, which has amassed about $3 billion worth of Disney stock. did.
Trian, which now owns more than 30 million shares of Disney stock, up from 6.4 million at the beginning of this year, named Peltz and former Disney chief financial officer James “Jay” Laszlo to Disney's board last month. We once again encouraged them to participate in the meeting.
The company, which manages more than $8.5 billion, abandoned an earlier bid to win a seat on its board in February, and the same month Disney's then-newly returned CEO Bob Iger announced that he would receive $5.5 billion. Achieve dollar cost savings.
Mr. Peltz, who is worth $1.5 billion and often describes himself as a partner who provides constructive advice to companies, reportedly opposed bringing Mr. Iger out of retirement to return as Disney's chief executive. .
According to the Journal, Trion, which Peltz co-founded in 2005, believes Disney's stock is significantly undervalued and wants Iger, who has signed an extension to remain in the Mouse House leadership through 2026, to Disney. The company is said to be under pressure to cancel its shares. decline.
Meanwhile, Mr. Iger has taken steps to increase the company's profits, including raising prices for the Disney+ streaming service and cracking down on password sharing.
With this price increase, the monthly price for ad-free Disney+ will increase by $3 (about 27%) in October to almost $14.
At the same time, the price for ad-free Hulu also increased by $3 to nearly $18. That's a 20% increase, making it more expensive than Netflix's most popular ad-free slot.
Iger acknowledged that the price hikes are aimed at steering consumers to cheaper ad-supported versions of these services, where subscription prices remain unchanged.
