CNBC ran a story which had execs in media companies anonymously make predictions for 2022.
The number one prediction was Disney’s current CEO Bob Chapek will resign and be replaced by the former CEO Bob Iger.
This story went very viral, but here’s why it has no chance.
First point to mention is why people think this in the first place.
Bob Iger was CEO to Disney from 2005 to 2020 and chair until yesterday.
Iger oversaw the purchases of Pixar, Marvel, LucasFilm & Fox Studios.
Market cap also rose 500%, with revenue and profit doing comparable.
He left largely due to age, where Disney had an unwritten rule of the CEO not being over 65 and he overstayed that a few years.
His successor Bob Chapek is also really skilled, but not in the way some people want.
Chapek was the head of theme parks, which depending on year is 30-40% of Disney’s revenue.
Issue with that is the concern that he doesn’t know how to manage Disney as it gets more digital.
Disney+ has 119 million subscribers.
The goal is to double that to 240 million by 2024.
At current track, Disney+ is set to be a much more profitable venture over the theme parks.
Complaint with Chapek is he’s internally focused too much on the parks and not on other stuff.
Here’s why that doesn’t matter and Iger isn’t returning.
Chapek is doing fine
Disney is almost post COVID and managed to get revenues to pre COVID levels, due to going more digital.
No serious complaints and besides people not finding him charismatic, nothing wrong.
Bob Iger has better things to do
Iger mentioned he considered running for president in both 2016 & 2020 in his book. He also was briefly mentioned to be Biden’s ambassador to China, before conflict of interest claims hit.
He’s 70, which does make him likely to run for president in the future, but could still pursue some office or project there.
The other factor is he can make way more money outside of Disney.
Bob Iger is worth 690 million today.
Comparing that
Jeffrey Katzenberg-900 million
George Lucas-8.5 billion
Steven Spielberg-8 billion
Bob Iger could outside of Disney setup his own company and with his contacts get all the funding/people he’d need.
Katzenberg raised 2 billion for Quibi, which was an awful idea and the rumored value of the company was 6 billion.
Bob Iger is arguably a bigger name and could just launch a studio or something, raise 100m and build his net worth up.
So money and personal life wise, this doesn’t make sense.
If they off’s Chapek, better options.
Kevin Feige has been head of Marvel since 2007 and part of the company since the 2009 buyout.
If they wanted someone more on the media or tech side, I feel they’d go for a person like him or someone involved in running Pixar.
There is a truth Walt Disney always envisioned a more middle aged CEO and I think the company always tries for that.
Final thoughts
This is likely CNBC baiting a rumor they got from a few execs, but it was number one on business news when it came out, so worth mentioning.