Word: disneyisms
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...this a good time to talk?" Brian Roberts asks. The CEO of Comcast, the largest cable company in the U.S., is on the phone for a quick interview before jetting off to meet with investors and pitch his latest gambit: a $66 billion hostile takeover of the Walt Disney...
...just asked that very question, after a fashion, of Disney CEO Michael Eisner. "I asked Michael, did he see a scenario where we can do this together?" Roberts recalls of their phone conversation. He won't characterize the rest of their chat, although you don't have to be an Imagineer to know Eisner's answer. So Roberts, polite as ever, precipitated a takeover brawl that has Wall Street investment bankers and Hollywood power players salivating: the Cable Guy from Philadelphia vs. the Monarch of the Magic Kingdom. For Roberts, who started his career selling subscriptions door to door...
Eisner, 61, took over a doddering Disney in 1984 and made it spout money. But since 1996, Disney has been sputtering. Eisner's outsize compensation, his somnolent board of directors and poor performances at ABC and Disney's theme parks and animation business have made him a target. Eisner's micromanaging style, imperious mien and inability to groom a successor--all perfectly acceptable when you're coining money--are now liabilities. Chief dissident Roy Disney, the founder's nephew, has called for his head, and Institutional Shareholders Services, an influential investor-advisory group, has recommended that its clients withhold their...
...With $18.3 billion in revenues in 2003, Comcast bills 21.5 million cable subscribers each month (out of 40 million potential customers in the areas it services) and, after unloading its stake in the QVC home-shopping network for $7.9 billion, has a balance sheet healthy enough to go at Disney...
Meanwhile, Roberts was in New York City telling shareholders that Comcast could run Disney better than Disney can--or more pointedly, better than Eisner can. In a press conference, Roberts and Comcast Cable president Stephen Burke promised they would increase Disney's cash flow by up to $1.2 billion in three years. "You have to be reasonably skeptical about that," says Moffett. Yet Disney's 2003 net income is down $583 million from its 1998 peak of $1.85 billion, and Disney shares hovered at about $24, down from a high of $43.63 in April 2000, before a run-up last...