Bob Iger, 71, has agreed to return to helm Disney for two years with the goal of establishing a strategy for “renewed growth,” the company said in a statement. He will also aim to work with the board to find a successor. “The board of directors believes that as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation, Bob Iger is in a unique position to lead the company at this crucial time,” said the chairman of the board of Disney. directors, Susan Arnold, in the press release. A champion of the Disney family and refined image, Bob Iger led the company from 2005 to 2020 and remained executive chairman of the group’s board of directors until the end of 2021. “He has deep respect for the Disney management team” Arnold said. . The firm, founded in 1923, did not detail the reasons for Bob Chapek’s departure, indicating only that he had left his position.
A Disney veteran, he took office in early 2020, right at the start of the pandemic. He then had to manage the closure, then the reopening, of amusement parks, but also the expansion of streaming. The results of this business, which faces fierce competition between Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or HBO Max, have recently come out mixed. Disney+ again gained a lot of subscribers in the third quarter and had more than 164 million subscribers at the end of September. But the Californian group’s video-on-demand platforms (Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu) recorded an operating loss of nearly $1.5 billion. And while its Amusement Parks, Experiences and Derivatives business had record sales over the period, the company’s overall revenues disappointed the market.
Under the Bob Iger era, Disney’s market capitalization increased fivefold
Disney’s stock fell more than 13% the day after these results were announced in early November. It’s down more than 40% since the beginning of the year. Mr. Chapek’s mandate was also marked by a complicated story in Florida where, at the beginning of the year, the company had initially decided not to take a stand against a law that forbade the teaching of subjects related to orientation, identity sexuality or gender in elementary school. Prompted by employees, Mr. Chapek eventually openly criticized the text, arousing the ire of conservative Governor Ron DeSantis and leading to the removal of a favorable administrative status that the Disney World theme park had enjoyed since the 1960s in this state.
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Under Bob Iger’s leadership, Disney had grown into an entertainment empire, including the acquisitions of animation studio Pixar in 2006 (“Finding Nemo,” “Toy Story”), Marvel in 2009 (“X-Men “, “Spider-Man” and the entire “Avengers” series), Lucasfilm in 2012 (“Star Wars”, “Indiana Jones”) or most of the assets of the former 21st Century Fox group in 2019. The launch of Disney+ was one of his latest ventures. Under his tenure, Disney’s market capitalization increased fivefold. “I am very optimistic about the future of this great company and I am delighted that the board of directors has asked me to return as CEO,” Bob Iger said in the statement.
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