Word: eisner
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...company has treated its CEO more regaly, over the years, than Walt Disney Co. Since landing the top job in 1984, Michael Eisner has collected more than $1 billion in total compensation. The magic of Disney was most evident in 1993, when Eisner's pay package of $203 million (almost all of it gains from stock options) was equal to 68 percent of the company's profits. When the Mouse was a growth stock, such pay was like the price of admission to Disneyworld - expensive, but at least you got some thrills out of the investment...
...first time in Eisner's reign, nearly every Disney division is sputtering. Ratings at its ABC network are horrible, and the theme park business is suffering from the economic malaise and post 9/11 downturn in travel. Takings at the new California Adventure theme park in Anaheim, one of two new locations, have been disappointing. The film studio is muddling through, and its relationship with Pixar Animation, which produced Toy Story, may be renegotiated on less profitable terms. Such ills have a symptom. Last week, Disney stock hit an eight-year low, closing at $14.65 - down 66 percent from its high...
...long bloodletting has been hard to miss. Yet only now, as the issue of corporate excess has gotten hotter than Vin Diesel, is the Disney board asking hard questions, and is Eisner acknowledging the need for a strong board. He has said he'll reduce its size, now at 16, dumping some cronies to give outside directors more pull...
...most at stake are seething. Roy Disney, nephew of the company's founder, and his business partner Stanley Gold, control 17.5 million Disney shares. Two weeks ago, after the company reported weak quarterly results, word leaked that the pair had adopted an unusually combative tone. Some now speculate that Eisner won't be re-hired when his contract expires in 2006, or may go earlier. Mentioned as successors are Viacom president Mel Karmazin, Sony of America CEO Howard Stringer, and former Disney-ite Jeffrey Katzenberg...
...Lansing points out that the ultimate test has not yet been met for women executives in Hollywood. She notes that there are no female Hollywood titans on the level of Disney's Michael Eisner or Viacom's Sumner Redstone. "The women I came up with," says Lansing, "we all got into this business to make movies, not to run corporations. But I think that right now at the Harvard Business School, there's some girl sitting there saying, 'I don't want Sherry Lansing's job. I want to be Sumner Redstone...