Bob Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company, speaks during the grand opening ceremony for the Zootopia-themed attraction at Shanghai Disney Resort at Shanghai Disney Resort on December 19, 2023 in Shanghai, China.
China Optical Group | Getty Images
Disney The largest shareholder, an index fund manager, plans to back the management of Nelson Peltz's Trian Partners in a board vote on Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.
Institutional shareholders have until Wednesday to change their vote. Vanguard owns 7.8% of Disney shares. Black stoneDisney, Disney's second-largest shareholder with a 4.2% stake, is also backing the current board and CEO Bob Iger, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Reports on how Disney's largest shareholders will vote drew sharp criticism from activist investor Bill Ackman on Tuesday evening.
“Only the company and its advisors have access to how shareholders will vote before the day of the annual meeting,” Ackman wrote on the social media platform X. “The reason why the progress of the board elections must be kept secret until the results are announced.” The last thing is that leaking the results could affect the final result.”
Ackman wrote that Disney shareholders should support Peltz's efforts, because he would be “hugely additive” to Disney and because the media leaks, which Ackman claimed came from Disney or its advisers, raised the question of why management was “fighting so hard to keep him off.”
It would be a major blow to Peltz's ambitions to join Disney's board if both BlackRock and Vanguard moved to support the media company's nominees. That would leave only State Street and Geod Capital Management, the company's third and fourth largest shareholders, unknown.
Through an agreement with former Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter, Trian controls 1.8% of Disney shares, making it the fifth-largest shareholder. Individual investors have until 11:59 PM ET on Tuesday to submit their vote by phone or online.
Trian has received support from other smaller shareholders, including Neuberger Berman and CalPERS. For its part, Disney summoned some of the most prominent names in the corporate and media world, including… C. B. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Star Wars creator George Lucas.
Disney's shareholder meeting begins Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET.
Vanguard declined to comment to CNBC.
Read the full Bloomberg report here.
