Disney CEO Iger Kicked on His Way Out the Door

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 3, 9:20AM EST

24/7 Wall St. Key Points

Outgoing Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) CEO Bob Iger had hoped that the new quarterly numbers would impress.
Wall Street responded by driving Disney stock down 7%.

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Disney CEO Iger Kicked on His Way Out the Door — © Kimberly White / Getty Images

On-again, off-again Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS | DIS Price Prediction) CEO Bob Iger hoped that the company’s new quarterly numbers were impressive. Wall Street trashed them by driving the stock down 7%. That puts them down almost 8% for the past year, while the S&P 500 is more than 15% higher.

Media reports say Josh D’Amaro, the head of Disney’s theme park operation, will replace Iger. Iger ran the entertainment company into the ground after he took over the second time as CEO in 2022. As Bloomberg reported, “D’Amaro, 54, has led the unit that delivers most of Disney’s profits since 2020.” Although the rising price of theme park admission has caused investor anxiety, short of a recession, the growth is unlikely to be curtailed.

Iger, who some considered to be a magician, oversaw Disney during some of its best days. From 2005 to 2020, he went on an M&A tear, adding Pixar, Marvel, LucasFilm, and part of 21st Century Fox. He also started Disney+ in November 2019. It grew, but the growth cost the company dearly. This streaming business has made a little money recently, but it sits well behind industry leaders Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube.

The best way to describe Disney’s recent financial performance is mediocre, which disturbs investors. In the most recent quarter, revenue was up 5% to $26 billion. Total segment operating income, which adds Disney’s unit performance together, dropped 9% to $4.6. Entertainment segment operating income fell 35% to $1.1 billion. On the same basis, the Sports segment’s figure dropped 23% to $191 million.

Experiences, the part of Disney run by D’Amaro, posted revenue of $10 billion, up 6%. Its segment operating income was up 6% to $3.3 billion. Experiences is 38% of Disney’s revenue and 72% of segment operating income.

When the figures were released, Iger said, “We are pleased with the start to our fiscal year, and our achievements reflect the tremendous progress we’ve made.” In reality, Iger has fixed nothing. Disney’s stock is down 42% in the past five years, while the S&P 500 is 79% higher.

Iger has left D’Amaro with a mess. The best thing he can do for investors is sell Disney during the current entertainment company M&A frenzy.

Walt Disney Stock Price Prediction and Forecast 2026-2030

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.