Disney Gets Ready to Fight a Battle It Can't Afford to Lose
The battleground is starting to become clear heading into Walt Disney's (NYSE: DIS) annual shareholder meeting in a couple of months. Two of the activist shareholders that were challenging Disney are offering up candidates to shake up the entertainment giant's board of directors. Disney is naturally only endorsing its own slate of a dozen directors.
Disney was able to dodge a proxy battle last year when CEO Bob Iger and the rest of the boardroom worked with Nelson Peltz from Trian Fund Management to settle their differences in what turned out to be an uncontested shareholder meeting. But this time around, there will be blood.
Activists launching proxy battles typically have large mouths with small stock positions -- but that's not Peltz. Trian has amassed a roughly $3 billion stake in Disney. It's less than 2% of the shares outstanding but enough to make it one of the largest shareholders in the House of Mouse.
Source Fool.com
