http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_09/b3922031_mz005.htm?chan=db (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_09/b3922031_mz005.htm?chan=db)

QuikQuote: Along the way, Stewart suggests, Eisner's hubris harmed the company. Out of pique, he refused to negotiate the terms of Katzenberg's severance deal -- and partly as a result, the settlement ballooned from $60 million to $280 million. He overruled his theme park staff and built a European park outside Paris, in large part because of his college fascination with France, writes Stewart. Lagging attendance and French public resistance to anything Disney have hobbled the park ever since, nearly forcing it into bankruptcy at one point. Eisner thwarted efforts by Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein to buy potential bargains such as Bravo! and Independent Film Channel from Cablevision Systems Corp., then wildly overpaid for the ABC Family Channel. His largest mistake: buying ABC, which saddled the company with losses and years of internal management turmoil. Meanwhile, Eisner's golden gut was tarnished: The company turned away such hits as The Apprentice, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Survivor.
For all of its copious detail, Stewart's book raises as many questions as it answers. How will the negative publicity affect the chances of Robert Iger -- the only internal candidate -- to succeed Eisner, who has said he will retire in late 2006? ("He can never succeed me," Stewart quotes Eisner as saying.) And what about Eisner? He tells Stewart the board "might come to me" with an offer of the chairmanship. Stewart's charges of Eisner's mismanagement won't help the CEO stick around. Of course, in Hollywood, nothing ever ends until the curtain comes down.

Chuck W. Oberleitner has posted his views on the book...



DisneyWar debunks two popular, contemporary Disney myths. The first is promulgated by Eisner himself that he viewed former Disney President Frank Wells like an equal partner who brought out the best in him. The second is that things didn't start going badly at Disney until after Wells unexpected death in a helicopter crash in 1994.

At least two years before Wells death, according to Stewart’s book, "Eisner had called Gold at one point to complain about Wells, and asked if could fire him."

For his part, Wells confided to Gold, "I hate it. I hate Michael Eisner. I can't go in there (Disney headquarters) anymore and take that s***."

And from the first of a 3 part interview from the Motley Fool...

http://www.fool.com/news/commentary/2005/commentary05022206.htm



James Stewart: Well, the problem, simply put, is that the stock reached a peak of about $42 as recently as the year 2000 and is now at $28 or $29. If you look at those numbers, it is a remarkable record, and he deserves tremendous credit for that, but it almost all occurred during the first 10 to 12 years of his reign, when he did not wield absolute power at the company.

To me it is fascinating that Disney, as many corporations are today, they kind of are the equivalent of medieval kingdoms. The problems at Disney really came when the people who acted as checks on Eisner's power, the president, Frank Wells; the head of the studio, Jeffrey Katzenberg; and head of animation, Roy Disney, one by one were dispatched until Eisner had consolidated absolute power in his own hands, and you can watch the stock begin to go down as a result.

I just wonder whether anyone will care who has enough shares... Yeah, all of us diehards want to see change - but if the major institutional investors don't make a big stink nothing will change. Even ISS now likes what they see, even though the board has been keeping things quiet...