Disney chief executive has a few big paydays still left
By Harry Wessel | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted March 15, 2005
Michael Eisner may be taking an early retirement this fall, but the big bucks won't stop just because he'll swap bluejeans for blue suits.
Eisner's 21-year run as Disney's chief executive officer will end Sept. 30, with his post assumed by Disney President Robert Iger. "Beginning Oct. 1, I expect to clean off my hiking boots, re-stock my Mickey Mouse backpack and start surveying some of the other peaks that are on the horizon," a wistful Eisner, 63, wrote Sunday to the Disney board of directors. He went so far as to suggest his next job may be as a Vermont camp counselor.
He'll be a well-paid one. His employment contract, which Disney board Chairman George Mitchell promised to honor, calls for Eisner to receive his $1 million annual salary and bonus until October 2006, plus annual bonuses of at least $6 million through September 2008.
And that doesn't include more than 21 million stock options Eisner holds, according to Disney's latest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He has until September 2011 to cash them in. Based on Disney's current stock price of about $28 a share, they are worth nearly $90 million.
That's a lot of money "for what has to be considered a dismal performance" by Disney stock since Eisner was granted the options in 1996, executive-compensation expert Kevin Murphy said.
While Disney stock has risen significantly in the past couple of years, its average annual increase since 1996 is less than 4 percent, said Murphy, chairman of the Department of Finance and Business Economics at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business.
Such a modest increase during Eisner's past 81/2 years "is not something he should be wonderfully proud of," said Murphy, vacationing with his family Monday at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom.
Since he started in 1984, Eisner has earned more than $1 billion in salary, bonuses and exercised stock options. His biggest year was 1997, when he took home more than $575 million, most of it in exercised options.
Although not on the latest Forbes magazine list of the world's billionaires, Eisner should have enough money saved for retirement to "move on and climb new mountains," as he wrote in Sunday's letter.
Harry Wessel can be reached at 407-420-5506 or hwessel@orlandosentinel.com.
By Harry Wessel | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted March 15, 2005
Michael Eisner may be taking an early retirement this fall, but the big bucks won't stop just because he'll swap bluejeans for blue suits.
Eisner's 21-year run as Disney's chief executive officer will end Sept. 30, with his post assumed by Disney President Robert Iger. "Beginning Oct. 1, I expect to clean off my hiking boots, re-stock my Mickey Mouse backpack and start surveying some of the other peaks that are on the horizon," a wistful Eisner, 63, wrote Sunday to the Disney board of directors. He went so far as to suggest his next job may be as a Vermont camp counselor.
He'll be a well-paid one. His employment contract, which Disney board Chairman George Mitchell promised to honor, calls for Eisner to receive his $1 million annual salary and bonus until October 2006, plus annual bonuses of at least $6 million through September 2008.
And that doesn't include more than 21 million stock options Eisner holds, according to Disney's latest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He has until September 2011 to cash them in. Based on Disney's current stock price of about $28 a share, they are worth nearly $90 million.
That's a lot of money "for what has to be considered a dismal performance" by Disney stock since Eisner was granted the options in 1996, executive-compensation expert Kevin Murphy said.
While Disney stock has risen significantly in the past couple of years, its average annual increase since 1996 is less than 4 percent, said Murphy, chairman of the Department of Finance and Business Economics at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business.
Such a modest increase during Eisner's past 81/2 years "is not something he should be wonderfully proud of," said Murphy, vacationing with his family Monday at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom.
Since he started in 1984, Eisner has earned more than $1 billion in salary, bonuses and exercised stock options. His biggest year was 1997, when he took home more than $575 million, most of it in exercised options.
Although not on the latest Forbes magazine list of the world's billionaires, Eisner should have enough money saved for retirement to "move on and climb new mountains," as he wrote in Sunday's letter.
Harry Wessel can be reached at 407-420-5506 or hwessel@orlandosentinel.com.
