It’s the end of Disney’s Iger era (again)
Incoming CEO Josh D’Amaro is replacing Bob Iger on Wednesday, though Iger will remain a senior adviser through the end of the year.
Wednesday marks the end of Bob Iger’s second stint as CEO at Disney, with incoming CEO Josh D’Amaro officially taking the reins at the company’s annual shareholder meeting this afternoon.
For Iger, it’s the end of a roughly 19-year stretch running the media giant. It’s also the second time in about six years that he’s being replaced by the head of his parks division.
In his first 15-year term, Iger oversaw acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, LucasFilm, and Fox, and the launch of Disney+. Disney shares grew more than 460% during his initial tenure.
His second term has been far less about transformation than course correction: he pivoted away from pandemic-era streaming exclusives, put ads on Disney+, reduced content spending, and struck a deal with OpenAI. The company entered the sports betting arena, first with ESPN Bet and then in a DraftKings partnership. Disney’s box office cold streak ended with big hits like “Lilo & Stitch” and “Zootopia 2.” As of Tuesday’s close, Disney shares had grown about 9% over Iger’s second, shorter run as CEO.
Zooming out, Main Street (USA) has significantly underperformed Wall Street since Iger first took hold of Disney. If you invested $100 in Disney on Iger’s first day in 2005, your current return would be $423.51 — good enough for about two and a half Disney World tickets. Had you invested that $100 in the S&P 500 instead, your return would be $702.99 — a solid four days at the park with enough left over to buy a crewneck sweater with Stitch on it.
Now, D’Amaro takes over a company whose shares — outside of a pandemic streaming boom and subsequent fallback — haven’t notably moved in more than a decade. The company will have more big fish to compete with in entertainment, if Paramount is successful in acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery.
On the entertainment side, D’Amaro will have to continue battling Netflix and come up with an answer for new content rivals like YouTube and TikTok, which continue to nab more attention share. (Just a hunch, but “Verts” probably isn’t going to do it.) In its profit stronghold parks division, the company has been weighing how to squeeze out more profit with ideas like dynamic pricing.
Should D’Amaro not work out to the degree the board is hoping, there’s always the tried-and-true method of returning to Iger: the outgoing exec will remain a senior adviser through the end of the year.
