News Bob Iger Steps Down - Bob Chapek CEO

Californian Elitist

Well-Known Member
While that's true, you can connect directly to Disneyland Paris from London by taking the Eurostar train from St. Pancras station through the chunnel. It's about a three hour commute.

Maybe worth a side trip, DL Paris has its good points.

I’ll be studying abroad at Oxford, so I won’t have time to get a trip in. And to be honest, I’m not super interested in seeing DL Paris, or any other Disney park for that matter.

I am planning to tack on another Italy trip after my program ends though. Super excited for that.
 

choco choco

Well-Known Member
Any chance this actually works out? What if Chapek in his new position as CEO is less involved with the parks and actually hires a real parks guy?

Probably very little, since Chapek's history is that of a cheapskate and the whole structure of American capitalism is structured to favor his way of thinking.

From enough stories, however, Chapek has not come off of as intelligent, self-aware or intellectually worldly or cultured. Such people, so siloed as to be oblivious, can be easily manipulated. Usually an advisor or grand vizier or some such who has an outsize affect because he sweet-talks the leader into his confidence and - eventually - doing their bidding. The stories, fiction and non-fiction, are rife through history. Mostly, you sweet talk the head honcho and appeal to their vanity ("The people will love you if you do this, sire...").

So there's your last hope, that someone becomes skilled in hoodwinking Chapek in doing good under the guise that he is doing it all in the glory of Chapek's performance with the board.

It's more likely, though, that Chapek is an interim and the board just didn't have time to do an extensive search.
 

Disney Irish

Premium Member
In my experience, a sudden retirement is almost always brought on by some type of personal issue. Usually it's health or family related. Iger enjoys the perks of being a world-renowned exec as much as anybody, but he's also a low-profile personality. It wouldn't shock me if we found out later that there was a private issue behind this.

There's really nobody EXCEPT Chapek that could step in right away. The directors would probably prefer to have someone with more of a media/tech background. But there's nobody with that profile far enough along in the pipeline, and no time to groom anybody who could potentially get there.

It's important to occassionally remind ourselves that TWDC ultimately rises and falls not on P&R (or "experiences"... whatever the heck they call it these days), but on the networks, the movie studios, and now Disney+. That's been the priority for at least 30 years, and probably won't change in any of our lifetimes.
Here is my issue with this line of thinking, he's not leaving the company. He is still there as Executive Chairman of the Board, with Chapek reporting directly to him. So its not like he actually retired and left the company as happens in the situation you're talking about. He is still fully immersed in the company, just less on the day-to-day operations.

I honestly think this comes down to two things:

1. The 21st Century merger went a lot faster than they thought.
2. Because of 1, they decided to start the transition process a year early in order to give Chapek time to be in the position but still have Iger around to right the ship if it goes off course.

I'm not sure it was ever going to be that on Dec 31st 2021 Iger would just hand over his badge and keys to the executive wash room to the next CEO without a transition period. There was always going to be a transition period where Iger would stay on to council the new CEO especially if it was someone like Chapek with less executive experience. They just pulled that trigger early because plans worked out better than they thought with the 21st Century merger.
 

Model3 McQueen

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
There is a bright side.. $hapek may be too busy to focus on the parks anymore, and whoever steps into his old position could restore the glory days of Disneyland?

Far-fetched but just a thought.
 

Disney Irish

Premium Member
The stock took a hit the day it was announced. Nobody thinks little Bob is ready. And it’s raised suspicion about why it happened so suddenly.
The stock was likely always going to take a hit the day that Iger stepped down. Iger is a Wall St darling. And Wall St doesn't like uncertainty, so any new CEO is going to also have to prove themselves no matter if Wall St thinks they're ready or not.
 

Mac Tonight

Well-Known Member
There is a bright side.. $hapek may be too busy to focus on the parks anymore, and whoever steps into his old position could restore the glory days of Disneyland?

Far-fetched but just a thought.
Probably not... unless we want to believe Chapek really did all the park's bidding unsupervised or free of Iger's influence. As such, Chapek's probably already laid down the directive of "Disney IP over everything" so whoever does take over will have to live under that.
 

Mac Tonight

Well-Known Member

"The company did not name a successor to Chapek at Parks, Experiences, and Products, “which also seems to imply that the timing of the transition wasn’t planned.” Iger said on the Tuesday call that the board has been discussing succession for several years and Chapek had been the top candidate for some time."

Just as I thought...
 

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
The stock was likely always going to take a hit the day that Iger stepped down. Iger is a Wall St darling. And Wall St doesn't like uncertainty, so any new CEO is going to also have to prove themselves no matter if Wall St thinks they're ready or not.
No, the stock was not always going to take a hit if Iger had done what he had said he would do for years now. A sudden change is not an orderly plan. Naming a successor, promoting him to the President and COO role that Iger himself held and then committing to finally retire, even on an accelerated timeline, would have gone a long way to mitigate the shock. Even with Eisner being pushed out there was a six month gap between Iger being named as his successor and him taking the job, and that was five years after him getting the number two job.
 

Disney Irish

Premium Member
No, the stock was not always going to take a hit if Iger had done what he had said he would do for years now. A sudden change is not an orderly plan. Naming a successor, promoting him to the President and COO role that Iger himself held and then committing to finally retire, even on an accelerated timeline, would have gone a long way to mitigate the shock. Even with Eisner being pushed out there was a six month gap between Iger being named as his successor and him taking the job, and that was five years after him getting the number two job.

I don't disagree that it was sudden, but Iger was favored by Wall St. When a favored CEO stepped down the stock takes a hit as institutional investors reposition their holdings to due to uncertainty. This is common with any change of leadership no matter how orderly, Wall St. doesn't like uncertainty planned or not. And a new CEO always has a period of uncertainty even if that person is groomed for years.
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
The stock took a hit the day it was announced. Nobody thinks little Bob is ready. And it’s raised suspicion about why it happened so suddenly.

It couldn't have taken a hit in the U.S. stock market the day it was announced because it was announced after trading hours.

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The stock was already in decline and declining more so because....

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Coronavirus.
 

BrianLo

Well-Known Member
How does a CEO "step up" in order to mentor his replacement over a year ahead of retirement without the announcement being a surprise?

Should Iger have been dropping hints?

Are people who are used to getting fed insider leaks angry they didn't smugly know ahead of time what Disney was doing?

The conspiracy theories are nuts.

I agree, the timing in terms of the company current state and future planning makes sense, how they are doing it makes sense.

The actual rollout, headlines and timing in terms of world events is odd.

A simple mention at the last fiscal meeting that succession planning was well under way and would be announced soon might have been a better move. Waiting a few more weeks for Coronavirus to settle would make more sense.

The headlines are also a bit sensational in so far as they imply Bob Iger is out of the company when really he is just on a 22 month phase out. It took way too long for me to realize Chapek is still reporting to Iger. Nothing has changed except making it official.

I read a headline elsewhere - which is how I first saw the news and my first reaction was ‘Is Bob Iger sick’?

That’s just poor roll out on their behalf! I don’t blame people for thinking there is something afoot. This wasn’t well handled and usually Iger is smoother than this.
 

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