Bob Iger to Return to Disney?

The answer to that question is; no.

Or rather; NO.

None the less CNBC ran with this ridiculous drivel.

It hasn’t even been two years since Bob Chapek took over as Disney’s CEO. But one executive told CNBC there are already internal wagers at Disney about Iger returning.

Iger, 70, repeatedly extended his contract after planning to retire in 2015, 2015, and 2018,  before abruptly stepping down in 2020. He’s still Disney’s executive chairman until the end of the year.

It’s unclear if Iger wants to return. He’s already working on a second book, according to The Hollywood Reporter, after publishing one in 2019.

But Disney shares have stumbled this year, down nearly 20% year to date. Iger owns a lot of those shares.  The board and Iger may get restless if Disney+ growth stagnates and the company continues to have turg tensions between executives.  

I’m sure there are internal wagers at Disney about Iger returning because there is always someone willing to hook a sucker on a chump’s bet.  

However, I am more than certain that the Disney executives making those bets are working at either Marvel or Pixar.  They may even believe that Iger willingly stepped down without any kind of prior notice whatsoever in 2020.  The fact that he looked like he’d just been shot in the chest when he made the announcement of the Chapek’s sudden elevation was entirely due to his being worried about Covid before anyone else. And only for that day.

Bob Iger is not coming back because he was FIRED.  Oh, he was fired in the nicest way possible, but he had control of Disney violently ripped away from him in February of 2020.  He had no say in Chapek’s promotion. And he was informed by the BOD that as of Jan 1, 2022 somebody new was going to be the Chairman of the Board.

It’s true that share prices have fallen this year, which is hardly a shock because they were ludicrously overinflated, to begin with.  The devasting tumble that Disney took in the last 12 months has now put their stock price (let me check here, yeah, I thought so) exactly where it was before COVID hit, back when the parks and movie revenues were much stronger than they are now. 

I’m sure Iger wants to return to Disney because his Olympian ego was badly bruised when he was shown the door.  If he was ever going to get his old office back, it was last year when the board panicked and made Iger Senior Co-CEO of Disney.  If he had had any kind of big win, then yes, he would have tried to muscle Chapek out.   Any second thoughts the BOD had about axing him were banished when the NBA deal blew a ton of money and then Iger started talking about buying another studio.

I am quite certain that Bob Iger is trying to raise his profile for some post-Disney activity.  Most likely a presidential run.  There is no getting around it, given what the rest of the potential Democrat slate of candidates looks like, he’s one of the more plausible choices available.  The big question is, how thick is his skin.  Movie executives don’t typically have to cope with people telling them to their faces what they actually think of them.

The illusion of genius has been broken for the institutional investors.

I can’t say it will never happen but it will never happen.

Developing.