Yahoo News Marvel Entertainment Chairman Ike Perlmutter Out at Disney
Marvel mogul Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter is out at Disney.
The billionaire, who sold the comic book giant Marvel to Disney in 2009, was told Wednesday that Disney is folding his Marvel Entertainment unit into other parts of the company and that he would be let go. Marvel Entertainment is focused mostly on consumer products and is not part of the lucrative Marvel Studios division led by Kevin Feige.
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Rob Steffens, the co-president of Marvel Entertainment, was also let go.
The New York Times first reported Perlmutter’s departure.
Known for being reclusive and frugal, Perlmutter acquired Marvel in 1998 via a toy company he controlled. A little more than a decade later, he helped orchestrate the sale to Disney, which was led by Iger, for $4 billion. Disney agreed to continue employing him as chairman of Marvel.
Perlmutter, however, rubbed other senior Disney executives the wrong way. He initially had oversight of Marvel Studios, which developed films based on Marvel characters. A feud with Feige, however, hit a boiling point in 2015, with Iger moving Marvel Studios from Perlmutter’s division and into Disney’s larger film operations.
Iger told CNBC in February that Perlmutter wanted to fire Feige.
“I promised Ike the job that he would continue to run Marvel after that, not forever, necessarily,” Iger said. “And in 2015 he was intent on firing Kevin Feige, who was running Marvel’s studio, … and I thought that was a mistake and stepped in to prevent that from happening.”
Iger’s interview came as Perlmutter was revealed to be involved in Nelson Peltz’s proxy fight against Disney.
“Our filings indicate that both Ike and Nelson were working together to try to encourage the board or convince the board to put Nelson on the board,” Iger told CNBC.
Indeed, according to Disney’s calendar of events, Perlmutter was the first person to reach out to then-CEO Bob Chapek to discuss a meeting with Peltz.
“Mr. Perlmutter said he and Mr. Peltz supported Mr. Chapek, and that adding Mr. Peltz to the Board would help Mr. Chapek counter recent headwinds he had faced, solidify his position as CEO, and preempt any other potential shareholder nominations of director nominees at the 2023 Annual Meeting,” Disney wrote in its preliminary proxy filing Jan. 17. “He said without Mr. Peltz there, former executives including Mr. Iger, would be back at Disney.”
Iger, of course, replaced Chapek as CEO in November, not long after the meeting cited by Disney took place.
Peltz dropped his proxy fight in February, after Iger reported strong quarterly earnings for the company and announced his turnaround plans.
While the decision to effectively fold Marvel Entertainment on Wednesday is a part of Disney’s larger layoff push (TV acquisitions and Chapek’s pet “metaverse” unit were also slashed), it’s hard not to see the broader context around Perlmutter’s more than 13-year run at the company.
A longtime friend of former President Donald Trump, Perlmutter was also said to have served as something of an informal adviser to Trump’s Veterans Affairs department.
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