Disney CEO Bob Iger's report card one year back into the job
Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Iger returned to the helm as the House of Mouse's chief executive one year ago today. Citi Managing Director Jason Bazinet explains Iger's year-in-review report card grade while referencing the outlook on Disney's cost-saving strategy and plans for its linear TV and streaming segments.
"I only give him a 'B' because the streaming business is still generating losses and we still have a lot of plates that are spinning," Bazinet tells Yahoo Finance. "They're exploring strategic alternatives for ABC and the India assets. We still don't have resolution on what the price they're going to pay when they acquire the one-third of Hulu. So there's still some TBDs out there."
Click here to watch the full interview on the Yahoo Finance YouTube page or you can watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live here.
This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.
Video Transcript
[AUDIO LOGO] - Today marks one year since Bob Iger stunned Wall Street and returned to the top job at Disney.
He's been working on a turnaround plan as he faces headwinds for the business.
Plus, an activist fight.
Joining us now is Jason Bazinet, managing director at Citigroup.
So Jason, thank you so much for joining us.
Let's just start there.
It's been one year, Jason.
How do you grade Mr. Iger's performance so far.
What do you think he's gotten right, what could he do better.
JASON BAZINET: Well, if I had to give them a grade, I'd probably say a B. I think what's gone right is we've seen a very large restructuring, so $7.5 billion in total.
We've seen streaming losses narrow by a billion.
He's restored PNL responsibility to the studio heads.
And those are all good things.
I only give him a B because the streaming business is still generating losses, and we still have a lot of plates that are spinning.
They're exploring strategic alternatives for ABC and the India assets.
We still don't have resolution on whether the price they're going to pay when they acquire the one third of Hulu.
So there's still some TBDs out there.
- Jason, it's Julie here.
What is the probability that all of those TBDs end up as best case scenarios.
JASON BAZINET: Well, look.
I think I guess for the ABC sale, and the India sale, the street doesn't have very lofty expectations.
So assuming that the potential buyers are going to pay a reasonable price, I think that would be I would just call it noise that comes out of the ecosystem and gets the street focused on the good news, which is really around parks and streaming.
Getting the streaming losses to break even, I would say the odds are actually quite good.
It's a mirror image of upsizing the restructuring, the $7.5 billion restructuring.
And so I think that's very much on track.
I think there is an outstanding question where the street's really giving no credit, and this really underpins the bull case.
Which is, once the streaming business gets to break even, can they actually generate Netflix type margins in the streaming business.
That's still a long way off.
And I think you have to give lower marks for that just because there's a lot of wood to chop between where we are now and where we're going.
So it's shifting from a cost cutting story to get to break even to really getting the right pricing for the streaming service to generate good margins.