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Credit: Inside the MagicTrian Partners billionaire investor Nelson Peltz has a lot of problems with how Bob Iger is running the Walt Disney Company, but partnering up with Taylor Swift is not one of them.
The battle between Nelson Peltz, an activist investor with a net worth of $1.7 billion dollars and ties to the Republican party, and Bob Iger, the once-legendary CEO of Disney, has been raging for over a year now. Around this time in 2023, Peltz attempted to gain seats on the Disney board of directors in a proxy battle (i.e., persuading shareholders to vote him in) in what is largely regarded as an attack on Iger, only to be narrowly defeated.
Now, Nelson Peltz is back at it, this time with the backing of former Marvel Entertainment chairman and fellow billionaire Ike Perlmutter. If anything, the Trian Partners founder has been even more vocal in his opposition to Bob Iger and dismissive of his future plans than the previous proxy battle and has been waging a very public campaign to convince shareholders to dump the CEO and bring in the billionaire.
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However, it seems that Nelson Peltz is all on board with Bob Iger making a massive $75 million deal to bring Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023) concert film exclusively to the Disney+ streaming service, which will begin streaming on Disney+ on March 14. Peltz has been doing interviews recently to get it out there how much he thinks Iger’s plans are “throwing spaghetti to see what sticks,” but also apparently to reveal that he’s a huge Swiftie.
In a wide-ranging interview with CNBC, Nelson reiterated his belief that the recent earnings call in which Bob Iger unveiled a sweeping plan to partner with Epic Games and invest some $60 billion into expanding the Disney Parks was a distraction to prevent shareholders from realizing they could get more out their stock. He said:
“[T]his company sells at a multiple of their pronouncements, you know, a very high multiple. They made these announcements like this management team just came into office about a week and a half ago. They have been here for 20 years. All of a sudden, they’ve awakened, and they want to start making all of these announcements? By the way, there’s very little meat on the bones on their announcements. The epic games, $1.5 billion. What’s the return? What are we getting as shareholders?”
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While that is par for the course for Peltz at this point, he followed it up with the surprising announcement, “[A]nd Taylor Swift, I think that’s great. I’m a fan, OK?… A real fan. I love her. That’s right. Can’t argue with that.”
The billionaire has been a hugely critical voice against the money that Disney has been spending in order to shore up its losses, but it seems that goes straight out the window once Taylor Swift is involved. We guess we know what Nelson Peltz will be watching when The Eras Tour begins streaming on Disney+ on March 15.
Are you a Swiftie like Nelson Peltz? Tell us in the comments below!