Commentary

Peltz Loses Disney Proxy Fight, Then Unloads Stock For $1 Billion Profit

Failed proxy fight warrior Nelson Peltz called it quits on Disney with the sale of all his company stock holdings and, in the process, made a $1 billion profit. 

The news that Peltz, 81, had unloaded all 32 million of his Disney shares -- essentially washing his hands of Disney -- was first reported by CNBC on Wednesday, citing an unnamed source.

Peltz reportedly sold the stock for $120 a share, said the CNBC source, resulting in his $1 billion windfall.

However, the CNBC story made no mention of when Peltz sold out. But other stories suggested he may have done so within a day or two of the bruising April 3 proxy vote in which he lost his bid to capture a seat on the Disney board, along with one or more allies, to press for changes in the company’s management under CEO Bob Iger.

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At midday yesterday (Thursday), Disney stock was trading at $101 per share. But back on April 3 after the proxy vote came out in favor of Iger and the Disney board, the stock shot up to as high as $123.69 per share. 

The next day, April 4, it reached a midday high of $120.49. On April 5, the day’s highest Disney share price was $118.86.

With prices hovering in the $120-per-share range, it could be that Peltz saw an opportunity to sell out for an enormous profit.

The price per share that Peltz may have originally paid for his 32 million shares was not included in any of the stories on-line that the TV Blog skimmed on Thursday. Neither was when he bought them.

But the TV Blog calculates that to earn a $1 billion profit on the sale of his shares, Peltz would have had to have bought them for around $89 per share. Disclaimer: The TV Blog is not a CPA or an MBA.

In any case, if he jumped on the high share price within hours or one or two days after he lost his proxy vote campaign, then skeptics might wonder if Peltz foresaw the whole thing.

A shrewd, deep-pocketed investor with decades of experience, Peltz may have already calculated that the odds of him capturing a board seat were slim to nonexistent, and that a Disney win would be seen by Wall Street as a vote of shareholder confidence in Disney management and its board of directors.

He may have sensed -- correctly, it turned out -- that a Disney victory would result in a spike in the company’s share price, at least in the short term.

If this scenario (for which the TV Blog possesses no evidence) is accurate, then it can be said that Peltz profited from a situation that he himself set in motion when he first mounted his challenge to Disney’s leadership.

After the proxy vote came out in Disney’s favor, Iger beamed, in part because the vote was portrayed in much of the business press as a challenge to his leadership personally.

Now, with Peltz making a complete break with the company, Iger and his team, and his board of directors, will not likely hear from the financier ever again.

1 comment about "Peltz Loses Disney Proxy Fight, Then Unloads Stock For $1 Billion Profit".
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  1. Thomas Siebert from BENEVOLENT PROPAGANDA, May 31, 2024 at 11:30 a.m.

    Prediction (because he's done it before): Peltz buys back in after the stock drops below $90 again. Which it almost surely will under the current incompetent "ideology over profits" regime. Wait'll people get a load of THE ACOLYTE, LOL. 

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