Disney Highlights Former Marvel Chief Ike Perlmutter’s “Difficult History With Bob Iger” In Latest Proxy War Salvo

deadline.com:

Disney’s latest salvo in a proxy fight with activist investor Trian Fund Management highlights the firm’s “silent partner” Ike Perlmutter and his “difficult history with Bob Iger.” That critique came in a 20-page slide deck, a follow-up to an anti-Trian video released by Disney earlier this week.

The clash has intensified ahead of Disney’s annual shareholder meeting on April 3. The new slide deck, titled “Correcting Trian’s Fiction With Facts,” revisits a number of prior arguments, many of which were included in the video. (Trian laid out its case in a 130-page white paper earlier this month.) For Hollywood observers in particular, though, Disney’s take on former Marvel boss Perlmutter is intriguing.

It also cuts a bit deeper than previous public comments on the former exec by Iger and the company. Perlmutter, who has long been friendly with Trian co-founder and front man Nelson Peltz, has been the firm’s “silent partner” in the effort to secure board seats for Peltz and ex-Disney CFO Jay Rasulo, Disney maintains. “The former Perlmutter’s fraught history with Bob Iger appears to have driven his collaboration with Peltz to run a proxy contest,” the document states, noting that Perlmutter owns about 79% of the shares Peltz “claims” to own.

Trian “neglected to address Perlmutter’s well-chronicled, difficult history with Bob Iger and many Disneyemployees, which is a highly relevant consideration for shareholders,” in Disney’s view.