Jennifer Saba

More investors are speaking loudly while carrying a little stick. New U.S. rules designed to make it easier for smaller fund managers to exert greater influence over corporate boards have started to help, even if it hasn't been exactly as intended. In some cases, however, they're missing the mark and instead proving to be an annoyance to their larger pushy peers.

Second chance. Walt Disney is trying to break the spell of its enchanted corner office. The board is trolling to replace its longtime occupant Chief Executive Bob Iger, something it has failed at repeatedly. The best way for Iger to ink his legacy is to nudge directors along.From Beverly Hills to West Hollywood, the scuttle among Tinseltown executives is that Iger will never leave. Their skepticism is warranted. Since he was first appointed chief executive in 2005, he extended his contract five times before he abruptly appointed longtime Disney executive Bob Chapek to succeed him in February 2020. The board invited Iger back in November 2022, after booting out Chapek. He has since extended his contract until 2026.The company said a successful CEO transition is a top priority. In January 2023, the board formed a special Succession Planning Committee tasked with finding a new leader. The search committee met seven times last year, according to Disney’s white paper released on Monday. Their mandate includes developing a timeline and reviewing prospective internal and external candidates. Half of the committee – Nike Chair Mark Parker and General Motors boss Mary Barra – have been directors for over six years and are responsible for the past ill-fated changing of the guard.There are two directions the company could go. Disney could tap someone in house. The board is evaluating four of Disney’s divisional heads as part of the formal search, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. Dana Walden, the co-chair of Disney Entertainment who is respected among the creative community, or James Pitaro, the leader of sports network ESPN, seem like runners. The $205 billion company could throw a stone in Los Angeles and find a Disney alum. Tom Staggs, who was once the heir apparent when he was chief operating officer at the Mouse House, might be invited back in the form of a deal. He is currently consulting for Iger. Disney could buy the Blackstone-backed Candle Media, the firm founded by Staggs and former Disney executive Kevin Mayer and have an instant contender for the C-suite.When Iger left Disney just as the world was on the brink of a pandemic, his reputation was riding high. He got its streaming flagship service Disney+ off the ground to great fanfare, and Disney sharply outperformed the S&P 500 Index. His second go-around has eroded credibility, and risks those returns. Prodding the board to find his successor and defying Hollywood’s conventional wisdom would preserve his legacy.

Leading role. A good corporate board ought to make the company's chief executive feel a little uncomfortable.

Sharknado. Endeavor boss Ari Emanuel hasn’t stopped moving. After taking his entertainment group public in 2021, then separating out crown-jewel sports asset Ultimate Fighting Championship, he has now sealed a $13 billion take-private transaction. The trouble is, the deal looks like chum for sharp-toothed buyer Silver Lake.The $27.50 per share all-cash offer, unveiled Tuesday, represents a 55% uplift from Endeavor’s stock price on Oct. 25. That was the day the company behind sports gambling outfit OpenBet and the talent agency representing Matt Damon announced a strategic review. The price might look chunky: Including debt, it comes in at nearly 14 times last year’s EBITDA of $1.2 billion – similar to the multiple that rival group CAA fetched in a transaction involving French billionaire François-Henri Pinault in September.But look closer, and there’s blood in the water. Endeavor and Silver Lake bill this as the largest private equity-led take-private buyout in over a decade. They get there by adding in the value of Endeavor’s controlling stake in TKO, home of the merged UFC and World Wrestling Entertainment, bringing the supposed headline figure to $25 billion.The deal is likely nowhere near that large. Assuming Silver Lake and management roll over their stakes in Endeavor, Egon Durban’s firm only needs around $6.7 billion to pay out to independent investors, Breakingviews calculates. But Durban and Emanuel are right about one thing: the company’s equity value does not seem to reflect the worth of TKO.This wrinkle stems from the late-2023 deal that formed TKO by separating and merging the UFC with WWE, leaving behind a grab bag of assets at Endeavor including a talent agency, professional bull-riding league and art fair. Under the confusing arrangement, Endeavor’s share price sagged. Prior to exploring alternatives, the company’s market value was about $8 billion – barely more than the then-roughly $7 billion value of its TKO stake.Silver Lake and Emanuel can benefit from that aberration. Since it consolidates results from TKO, Endeavor’s profit is set to be much higher this year; the take-private represents a mere 9 times multiple of expected 2024 EBITDA, according to LSEG.A special committee of directors approved the deal, but Silver Lake – which holds voting control – rebuffed a request for a minority vote, Reuters reported. Such votes have been contentious for the buyout shop in the past, like when Carl Icahn agitated for more money when the firm helped take computer-maker Dell private in 2013. This time, investors are left to swim with the sharks.

Rebel. Rubrik is attempting to rewrite the rules of success. The Microsoft-backed cybersecurity firm filed to go public in early April flaunting a

Game, set…. Netflix is laughing its way through the streaming-industry horror show. The company behind “One Day” is signing up more customers as laggard rivals prioritize profit ahead of growth.

Paramount Global's sale process is on the verge of ending like “Thelma & Louise.” A complex transaction with production studio Skydance Media would allow controlling shareholder Shari Redstone to run off with the spoils, leaving rival suitors in the dust. Other investors know they're just along for the ride, but are trying to avoid being driven off a cliff.

NEW YORK, April 24 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The countdown clock is starting for TikTok, but Meta Platforms boss Mark Zuckerberg will only be glancing at it periodically.

Metaverse 2.0. Mark Zuckerberg's backers seem to have forgotten who he is. Meta Platforms, the company he started under the banner of moving fast

Metaverse 2.0. Mark Zuckerberg’s backers seem to have forgotten who he is. Meta Platforms, the company he started under the banner of moving fast and breaking things, lost 16%, or some $200 billion of market value, after indicating its second-quarter revenue would be lower than analysts were projecting and that this year’s capital-expenditure bill would be higher than previously flagged. Maybe the inaugural dividend unveiled in February lulled investors into complacency, but the CEO’s track record leaves little doubt about how he operates.Following the release of the quarterly results on Wednesday, Zuckerberg made clear where he is steering the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. He’s more optimistic and more ambitious on artificial intelligence and wants to build the world’s leading services in the field. The goal will require significant investment. Meta’s 2024 forecast for capex, including on servers and other infrastructure, could reach $40 billion, more than the $37 billion it had signaled earlier. Zuckerberg and Chief Financial Officer Susan Li also noted the related projects probably will take “several years.” Finding ways to make money from them also is a work in progress.If this sounds familiar, it is. Meta has been spending heaps of money to reinvent itself for years. It made the leap from PCs to smartphones, and keeps rolling out new services and features, including Reels and Stories, before diving whole hog into the metaverse. AI is already recommending half of what shows up on Instagram feeds. And although the upside of applying the technology to the company’s primary revenue source, advertising, may be fuzzy, it’s also quite promising.Meta’s past sprees have sent investors scurrying before. In 2022, for example, right after Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, capex jumped to 27% of revenue, more than 10 percentage points higher than in the previous year. The company’s stock price plummeted by nearly two-thirds before recovering, and then some.With deep-pocketed rivals such as Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft all gunning for AI supremacy, it’s hard to see how anyone would think Zuckerberg might enter the race at half-speed. As ever, he’ll be running full throttle, knocking things over along the way. There’s little reason for his spending habits to have any more power to shock.