Chief executive officers at America’s big companies often get obscene pay packages paying them tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars a year. Shareholders often vote against these, but boards rarely pay attention. If 2021 did not set a record for CEO pay, it came close.
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However, the latest deal for Disney CEO Bob Chapek takes obscene to an entirely new level. Disney’s shares are off 45% in the past year. The renewal is for three years. Susan Arnold, Disney’s board chair, commented “Disney was dealt a tough hand by the pandemic, yet with Bob at the helm, our businesses — from parks to streaming — not only weathered the storm, but emerged in a position of strength.” In fact, the comment is incorrect.
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Disney’s failure goes beyond Chapek’s mishandling of a battle in Florida over a bill that would undercut the rights of schools to teach about gender identity. Chapek sat on the sidelines until his own employees protested.
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The growth of online streaming system Disney+ has slowed. It will be blocked by stiff competition from Netflix, Amazon and other streamers. This is not a reason to punish Chapek, but he has not offered a strong strategy to help Disney increase subscribers substantially.
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For years, Disney has been among the most admired companies in America. Chapek has killed that and had his contract renewed at the same time.
With Stock Down 45%, Disney Gives CEO New Contract
© Walt Disney Studios Alameda Entrance (CC BY-SA 4.0) by Coolcaesar
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.
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