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Major Disney stockholder Ike Perlmutter had sold his entire stake, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. When reached through a spokesperson, the businessmen didn't deny the claims. The publication further reported that Perlmutter's entire stake included about 25.6 million shares. The decision came after Perlmutter and Nelson Peltz failed to win a "proxy fight." Perlmutter also stated that he had lost his confidence in the company's management, which further led him to the decision of selling off his stake
The 81-year-old businessman paired up with Peltz, to win two seats on Disney's board of directors. Peltz further nominated himself as well as Jay Rasulo and began a campaign as well. In the process, Perlmutter lent his shares to Nelson, while being a part of the "proxy fight."
Despite the intensive campaign, both Rasulo and Peltz lost the fight. This led to Ike Perlmutter's decision to sell off his shares. The Israeli-American billionaire sold Marvel to Disney, back in 2009, for about $4 billion, and has a net worth of $5 billion, as per Celebrity Net Worth. Fuurther, Perlmutter was also responsible for the 1998 merger of Marvel and Toy Biz, which led to the formation of Marvel Enterprises.
Billionaire Ike Perlmutter's life and career explored
Born in December 1942, Ike Perlmutter immigrated to the US as a young adult, from Mandatory Palestine, which later became Israel. His first company, Odd Lot Trading, was formed along with co-founder Bernard Marden. Then in 1984, according to Celebrity Net Worth, the pair decided to sell off the company in exchange for 12% of shares to the Revco Discount Drug Stores.
The business mogul began his association with Marvel Entertainment in 1993 when he became a member of the board of directors of the company. Ike Perlmutter also served as the chairman of the company, till 1995. Along with this, he was also a co-owner of Toy Biz. After Marvel went bankrupt, it was primarily his decision to merge it with Toy Biz, thus, forming Marvel Enterprises.
In 2001, he became the company vice chairman, and in 2005, he was the CEO. The 2009 deal in which he sold Marvel to Disney, gave him an earning of about $800 million in cash as well as $590 million in stocks of Disney, as reported by Celebrity Net Worth. He continued working at Marvel till 2023, after which he was "laid off" due to restructuring the company.
In 2023, Disney CEO Bob Iger told the Time Magazine,
"I’d rather not get into details about this one… There was redundancy specific to the way Marvel was being managed."
Iger added that the removal of Perlmutter had nothing to do with his association with Nelson Peltz.
Ike Perlmutter is married to Laura J. Perlmutter, and the two do not have children. According to Celebrity Net Worth, the couple had made significant contributions to the New York University Langone Health medical center. They have also been involved with the "Innocence Project," which primarily deals with wrongly convicted people.
Perlmutter has been openly supporting the Republicans for a long time now, by donating lump sum amounts to the PAC. For instance, as per the New York Times, in 2015, his wife made a donation of $2 million to the super PAC to extend support to Sen. Marco Rubio's candidature. The Hollywood Reporter published an article in 2016, according to which, Laura Perlmutter donated $449,400 to a PAC supporting now-former President Donald Trump.
More about the proxy fight involving Ike Perlmutter and Nelson Peltz
Activist investor Nelson Peltz initially decided to run for a position on the Disney board back in 2022 but ultimately chose to not go ahead with it since the company was going through some restructuring. Ike Perlmutter was someone who extended support to Peltz in 2022. Bob Iger, who eventually fired Perlmutter, spoke about the duo, and said,
"Ike and Nelson were working together to try to encourage the board or convince the board to put Nelson on the board. They have a relationship that dates back quite some time. We bought Marvel in 2009. I promised Ike the job that he would continue to run Marvel after that. Not forever, necessarily."
For the second time, Perlmutter allowed Peltz to vote his shares as he decided to seek two board seats - one for himself and one for Jay Rasulo. Through a statement, Peltz defended his actions of seeking two seats, and said,
"Disney has lost money for its shareholders over a long period of time."
He further recalled the first proxy fight and then said,
"A year ago, faced with a proxy contest that sought to bring accountability for these failures, Disney attempted to assure shareholders that a ‘significant transformation’ was underway."
In April, however, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, shareholders overwhelmingly voted for the company. While Peltz secured only 30% of votes, Jay Rasulo lost by a margin of five to one, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
After selling the entire stake, Ike Perlmutter stated that he didn't have confidence in the company's management anymore, and that he would consider buying much of his stake back if the share price falls to around $65-75 each. The shares were reportedly sold at the rate of about $115 each.
