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| Iger: Showtime |
Los Angeles, March 14 (Reuters): Walt Disney Co on Sunday ended its contentious search for a new leader without leaving the house that Mickey Mouse built, naming current company president Robert Iger to succeed chief executive Michael Eisner, who will step down a year before he planned.
The company also said Eisner ? once the highest-paid chief executive in the United States ? will end his more than 20-year reign on September 30, and turn over control of the vast entertainment conglomerate to his preferred successor, a former TV weatherman who worked his way to the top of Disney.
However, two former directors who led a 2004 shareholder protest, including namesake Walt Disney?s nephew Roy, were furious with the board?s choice, saying investors had been ?conned?. They also accused the board of failing to find major outside candidates.
Eisner began his reign in glory, revitalising a company whose business had turned flat. But he now leaves against a backdrop of embarrassing lawsuits from former Disney executives and a bitter shareholder protest that saw a 45 per cent vote against him at the 2004 annual meeting.
The 63-year-old Eisner will remain on the Disney board until the company?s 2006 annual meeting.
Disney chairman and former US Senator George Mitchell said: ?We definitely had choices ? we made the right choice.?
On a conference call, Mitchell told reporters that Iger deserved partial credit for the company?s recent stock market gains and financial improvement after Disney hit a rut in the late 1990s.
Mitchell also said the process was thorough and the vote for Iger was unanimous despite ?vigorous discussion? by directors.
Iger, 54, is a longtime media executive who began his career as a weatherman before starting a steady advance at television network ABC and then Disney.
The dapper Iger is credited with helping turn around ABC and managing much of Disney?s day-to-day operations, as well as a new focus on technology and expansion into Asia, where Disney is building one theme park and considering others.
