迪士尼困境 | 经济学人商业
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熊彼特专栏
The Iger v Peltz rematch
艾格再战佩尔茨
Disney's problems are as much about leadership as strategy
迪士尼领导层的问题和战略面的问题一样大
The letter to Disney’s top brass, when it came, was devastating. It referred to failure in the television business, low morale, mismanagement, underinvestment in theme parks and “your consistent refusal to establish a clear succession plan”. It demanded that the chief executive resign. That might sound like just the sort of missive Nelson Peltz, an activist investor, would send Bob Iger, Disney’s chief executive officer (ceo), having secured control of a stake worth about $2.5bn in the entertainment giant. But it isn’t. It is the letter, quoted in Mr Iger’s autobiography, that Roy Disney, Walt Disney’s nephew, sent to Michael Eisner, Mr Iger’s predecessor, almost 20 years ago, which led to Mr Eisner’s downfall and elevated Mr Iger to the Magic Kingdom’s throne. He, of all people, should know how lethal such messages can be.
这封写给迪士尼高层的信一出现便大杀四方。信中直言不讳地指出电视业务失败、士气低糜、管理混乱、主题公园投资不足等问题以及“你们（高层）一再拒绝制定明确的接班人计划”。信中要求总裁辞职。这口吻听起来很像是激进投资者纳尔逊·佩尔茨（Nelson Peltz）写给迪士尼首席执行官(CEO)鲍勃·艾格（Bob Iger）的那种信函，毕竟佩尔茨已手握这家娱乐巨头价值约25亿美元的股份。但这封信并非佩尔茨写给艾格的。艾格的自传里提到，这封信是约20年前，华特·迪士尼（Walt Disney）的侄子罗伊·迪士尼（Roy Disney）写给艾格前任迈克尔·艾斯纳（Michael Eisner）的信。它的出现把艾斯纳拉下台，也将艾格推上这个魔法王国的宝座。艾格应该比任何人都清楚信里的这些信息会有多大的威力。
Call it Disney’s “Nightmare before Christmas”. Nine months after Mr Peltz, the 81-year-old co-founder of Trian Fund Management, gave Mr Iger a badly needed breather by ending a proxy battle for a board seat at Disney, the Brooklyn-born billionaire is back on the warpath. If anything, he is better armed than before. Adding his shares to Trian’s is Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter, an 80-year-old former Israeli soldier who sold his company, Marvel Entertainment, to Mr Iger for $4bn in 2009, making him one of Disney’s biggest investors and a frequent thorn in the ceo’s side. (Mr Iger, in turn, has portrayed Mr Perlmutter as a paranoid penny-pincher with little interest in the creative side of entertainment.)
称其为迪士尼的“圣诞夜惊魂”。九个月前，特里安基金管理公司81岁的联合创始人佩尔茨结束了为一个迪士尼董事会席位而展开的代理权之争，艾格才得以喘息。如今，这位布鲁克林出生的亿万富翁又要披挂上阵了。再次出征的佩尔茨战斗力更加强悍。80岁的前以色列士兵艾萨克·“艾克”·珀尔马特（Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter）把自己持有的迪士尼股份交于特里安基金公司代为行使权利。珀尔马特在2009年以40亿美元的价格将他的公司漫威娱乐卖给艾格，从而成为迪士尼最大的投资者之一，也成了CEO最大的芒刺。(艾格因而将珀尔马特形容为偏执的吝啬鬼，说他对娱乐业的创新毫不关注。)
Mr Peltz and Mr Perlmutter, who live near each other in Palm Beach, Florida, have what is understood to be just shy of 2% of Disney’s shares, which they argue have serially underperformed the stockmarket, not just since Mr Iger’s second coming as ceo almost a year ago, but since midway through his first 15-year stint, which ended in 2020. They want a shareholder-focused shake up, as well as several seats on the board. The 72-year-old Mr Iger is working against the clock to find the right strategic direction for Disney, as well as a potential successor to himself. On November 8th the firm reported better-than-expected profits in the quarter from July to September, and announced that it would raise its cost-cutting target. Mr Iger declared that the firm was ready to “move beyond this period of fixing and begin building our businesses again”. Whether Mr Peltz agrees remains to be seen.
佩尔茨和珀尔马特在佛州棕榈滩是近邻。据悉他们持有迪士尼近2%的股票，并且两人都认为迪士尼的股票的低迷不仅始于约一年前艾格二度出任CEO，更是从他的第一个15年任期中段就开始了(该任期于2020年结束)。他们想要一场以股东为中心的重组，并且再获得几个董事会的席位。72岁的艾格正争分夺秒为迪士尼寻找正确的战略方向，以及他自己的潜在继任者。11月8日，迪士尼公布7-9月的季度利润好于预期，并宣布将调高成本削减目标。艾格宣称，迪士尼已做好准备“走出调整期，再次出发，开展业务”。而佩尔茨对此是否同意，尚待分晓。
Mr Iger is already shoring up his anti-Trian defences. On November 6th Disney announced the appointment of Hugh Johnston as chief financial officer, luring him away from PepsiCo, where he has been cfo for 13 years. During that time Mr Johnston helped defeat a two-year attempt by Mr Peltz to split up the beverage-and-snack behemoth, giving him first-hand experience of the activist’s tactics. Mr Iger may also consider the new hire to be a potential candidate to replace him when his contract expires in 2026, potentially resolving a nagging question hanging over his legacy.
艾格也已经采取行动以抵御特里安基金公司的攻势。11月6日，迪士尼宣布任命休·约翰斯顿（Hugh Johnston）为首席财务官，在此之前，约翰斯顿在百事公司担任了13年的CFO。在此期间，佩尔茨企图拆分这家饮料零食巨头，约翰斯顿参与了这场长达两年的反拆分斗争，因此在对佩尔茨这位激进投资者的策略有第一手应对经验。艾格可能还考虑将这名新员工作为自己的潜在继任人选，这兴许能解决他2026年合同到期卸任后可能会存在的棘手问题。
The battle will not solely be about the future, though. If Mr Peltz issues one of his famous “white papers” spelling out his concerns about Disney, it may well focus on Mr Iger’s recent leadership lapses, as well as the governance of a company whose board, from the chairman on down, appears to be in thrall to him. “A ceo-centric board is a perfect target for a successful proxy fight,” says Charles Elson, founder of the Weinberg Centre for Corporate Governance in Newark, Delaware. “It’s a smart move.”
然而，这场争斗不仅关乎于未来。如果佩尔茨发表一份他那知名“白皮书”，道出对迪士尼的种种担忧，那么重点很可能会落在艾格近期的领导失误与企业治理上。在整个董事会，上至董事长下至其他成员，看似都听命于他。特拉华州纽瓦克的温伯格公司治理中心创始人查尔斯·埃尔森（Charles Elson）表示：“以CEO为核心的董事会是成功代理权争夺战的完美目标。这是一步好棋。”
Mr Iger started to dig a hole for himself during his first turn as ceo, for part of which he was also chairman. He pushed back his retirement several times, then clashed repeatedly with his replacement, Bob Chapek, before reclaiming the ceo role two years later. The current chairman, Mark Parker, who took the job in April, first joined the board under Mr Iger’s leadership in 2016, making him, along with six other serving board members appointed before 2020, partly responsible for Mr Iger’s succession-planning fiasco. Moreover, Mr Parker is executive chairman of Nike, a sports-shoe retailer, meaning he runs two s&p 500 boards at the same time. Unless he is a Marvel character himself, that seems like too much responsibility for one man to shoulder.
艾格在首次担任CEO时就开始给自己挖坑，在那期间他还出任过董事长。他曾多次延迟退休，并且在两年后复任CEO之前，与继任者鲍勃·查佩克（Bob Chapek）冲突频繁。现任董事长马克·帕克（Mark Parker）于今年4月上任，他于2016 年进入董事会，当时的董事会还在艾格的领导之下。因此，他与其他六位在2020年之前所任命的现任董事会成员都对艾格失败的继任计划负有部分负责。此外，帕克还是运动鞋零售商耐克的执行主席，这意味着他同时管理两家名列标普500公司的董事会。除非他自己就是漫威电影中的超人角色，否则他一人肩上的担子似乎太沉重了。
Many of the current board members were at Disney in 2019 when Mr Iger led the $71bn acquisition of 21st Century Fox, a film company, which saddled Disney with debt. They also blessed vast amounts of spending on content when the company launched Disney+, its loss-making streaming service. This year the board appears to have done little to help clarify Mr Iger’s thinking, either. He has three strategic quandaries to resolve. The first is to decide the future of Disney’s tv businesses, including espn, the sports channel, which were once the company’s cash cow but are now suffering from the slow demise of the cable bundle. Even the future of Star India, a former jewel with broadcast rights to cricket on the subcontinent, is under review. The second is to stem losses at Disney+, as well as agreeing with Comcast, a cable company, on a fair price for the rest of Hulu, another streaming service, that Disney part-owns with its competitor. The third is to reinvest in the parks business, including Disneyland, which Mr Peltz has accused Disney of milking to support its media business. So far this year, Mr Iger has blown hot and cold over the sale of tv assets and expressed reluctance about buying Hulu before changing his mind. As for parks, he recently announced a $60bn investment—but that is over ten years, and much of it may be earmarked to be spent after the end of his expected tenure.
2019年，艾格以710亿美元收购21世纪福克斯电影公司，让迪士尼债台高筑，而现任的许多董事会成员当时也在迪士尼。当迪士尼推出Disney+时，他们同意了在内容输出上的巨额投入，而这一流媒体服务如今处于亏损状态。今年，董事会成员似乎也并未帮助艾格理清思路。他有三个战略挑战亟待应对。首先是决定ESPN运动频道等迪士尼电视业务的未来，电视业务曾让迪士尼赚得盆满钵满，现在却因有线电视的势微而面临压力。迪士尼甚至正在考量Star India未来将何去何从，该业务曾因拥有在次大陆的印度板球超级联赛转播权而被视为明珠。第二是遏制Disney+的亏损，并与有线电视公司康卡斯特就Hulu（迪士尼与其竞争对手共有的一家流媒体服务公司）的剩余股权达成公平价格协定。第三是对迪士尼乐园等乐园项目进行再投资。佩尔茨就曾指责迪士尼抽取迪士尼乐园的利润用于支持媒体业务发展。今年以来，艾格在出售电视资产上摇摆不定，并表示在他改变主意之前，他并不乐意收购Hulu。而至于乐园项目，艾格近期宣布了一项600亿美元的投资，但这笔投资跨度长逾10年，而且其中大部分资金可能被安排在他的预期任期结束后使用。
Ear! Ear!
多多聆听
Mr Peltz may not be the answer to Disney’s problems. He does not always win battles, but loses them too. Besides PepsiCo, where Trian at least benefited from a rising share price, his investment in ge, a conglomerate, was a big failure. He does not carry Disney in his blood, as Roy did, nor does he necessarily know how to fix the company. But making the board more accountable to shareholders than it is to Mr Iger is the right place to start.
佩尔茨可能并不能带领迪士尼摆脱困境。在商战中，他并非常胜将军，也会折戟。除了百事可乐（特里安至少因股价上升而受益），佩尔茨对另一巨头通用电气公司的投资也损失惨重。和罗伊不同，他的血液里没有流淌着迪士尼的基因，他也并不一定知道如何让这家公司走回正途。但相比对艾格负责，一个对股东们更加负责的董事会确实更为正确。
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Octavia, 键盘手和古风爵士，逃离舒适圈，有只英短叫八爷
Qianna，对语言有点敏感，对逻辑十分执拗，对摇滚太过着迷
校对组：
UU，允许别人做别人，允许自己做自己
Mosy，绘本、演讲、戏剧英文教育践行者
Rachel，学理工科，爱跳芭蕾，热爱文艺的非典型翻译（年年备战一口）
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