Good article Jim. Im glad someone is exposing this bizarre and deranged monster. For years she has been courtiously labelled as 'eccentric' but Im afraid thats a little tired now. Also I think its important to realise this 'deranged ego in the body of an elderly lady' no longer deserves the kind of courtesies that are continuously allowed her. It may have been eccentric at prior meetings but it was out and out sabotage this time around. A lot of people travel a long way to attend these meetings because they genuinely care about the company. It should not be allowed as a platform for deranged individuals to 'strut there stuff'. You know its just not funny any more. Its out and out rudeness. As a stockholder and a disney fan I am outraged that this bizarre entity was allowed to sabotage the meeting.

On the basis of her photo above, I'd say a place could be found for her in the Haunted Mansion. Not as a cast member, mind you, but rather more as set dressing. Perhaps in the Conservatory...

I remember her from the last Disney shareholder meeting in Anaheim.  Sounds like she was reasonably well behaved for that one, and you're right, Jim - the execs pretty much bend over backwards to put up with her.

Can't say that I blame 'em - could you imagine the headlines if they had a couple of security guards pick her up and toss her butt on to the sidewalk like they really want to do?

Thanks for the article, Jim.  I'm jealous- I want to hear a song from "The Frog Princess".  I have nothing against New Orleans, and it seems fitting in a way to announce "The Frog Princess" there, but I wonder if the attendance would have been higer if the meeting would've been held in Anaheim or Orlando.  I would have tried and gone to the Orlando one.  

I have a question- I just read an article online from the Orlando Sentinel, and it made me wonder-

Will Disney open a 2D animation unit again?  They're not going to outsource the animation for "The Frog Princess", are they?  It's one thing to "outsource" the animation to a Disney France or Disney Australia team, but not to some company outside of Disney.  Is the animation for "Enchanted" being done completely in-house?

So, Disney WASN'T running from Oralndo or Anaheim to avoid the union troubles? They actually went to the Big Easy because it fit the announcement of it's return to traditional animation? Eisner is actually gone? (oh yeah, each pack of Topps sports cards will now have a picture of Eisner included, his head superimposed on some star athletes body)

That lady is ANNOYING. I remember her from the infamous Philly shareholder's meeting and I wanted to smack her. Eccentric or whatever ... she's abrasive, irritating, and rude.

As far as the articles goes, the SotS information is good to hear, although part of me wonders how much of all this SotS stuff is just smoke and mirrors to hype the film up before they finally "give in" and release it.

Disney is above exploiting the race card for profit aren't they? AREN'T THEY???

On an unrelated note... does anyone else have a problem with their Peter Pan 2nd disk?  Mine skips and freezes during the backstage disney features.  I've tried the disk in multiple players.  I'm going to return it and get a new one.  Isolated or epidemic situation?

blackcauldron85: "Will Disney open a 2D animation unit again?  They're not going to outsource the animation for "The Frog Princess", are they?"

I was asking myself the same question, and hope the answer is that they will.

(Also, animation for "Enchanted" is done by James Baxter Animation, not WDFA/WDTA.)

Oh.  Thanks, Empoor.  Well, James Baxter used to work for Disney- it could be worse.  Now that Disney has decided that they'll continue making traditional animated films, they need to reopen its animated unit.  I'm sure many people would love to have their jobs back, as long as they know that they won't get laid off again.  

While I mostly agree with Jim Hill that Evelyn Y. Davis was annoying and self-serving, the interesting thing about her is that she is a bit more complex than his depiction indicates (although she was certainly at her worst here).  Davis has done some interesting, and I would argue good, things, like point out the outrageous heaps of money that major companies have just thrown out their top executives with little or no checks or balances, a practice that luckily seems to be on the decline, at least a bit.  Even at this meeting, in between her admittedly weird self-promotion, she was correct, I think, to point out that it would be better to give actual stock rather than stock options, as stock options may give a company's top executives or board an incentive to engineer or ignore illegal stock manipulations that might help them to sell their stock at an artificially inflated price (which Enron and others shows has happened).  It has always seemed inherently unfair to me that Michael Eisner and his close colleagues were allowed to get filthy rich by being given stock options at a fixed price that they could just sit on until the stock went way up in price, and then they could buy it at the old price, sell it at the new price, and walk away with millions.   And all at no financial risk to themselves.  That is not, I think, fair to real stockholders or good for a company.  Also, getting back to Davis, don't feel too bad for John Pepper, as he already dealt with Davis while at Proctor & Gamble.  These guys all know her.  If you want to read an interesting article on Davis, check out this one: http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2003-04-27-shareholders-davis_x.htm

I agree that there's nothing particularly wrong with Evelyn Davis' message, svonco - frankly it might do these companies' directors some good to put their emphasis on finding other things to do besides looking for questionable means of further enriching themselves at the expense of the shareholders and rank and file employees.  But the thing is, the messenger is as important as the message in today's world. No matter how good the idea is, if the person comes off as a self-serving, grandstanding kook, the idea comes off as kooky, too.

Why didn't they just leave the floor mic turned off until the Q&A session. Then unless the rude interruption can yell louder than a PA system they won't be more than an annoyance to a 6' radius.

Did the crowd shout her down so they could see the rest of the presentation?

Finally, once reason for granting stock options rather than stock is that it provides a retention incentive. This has been very successfully used in high tech where someone will be less tempted to jump ship for a 10-15% raise if they have a significant amount of in the money stock options. Plus it is supposed to tie the executive's financial interests to those of the company's owners; i.e. the shareholders.

Oh my goodness, considering this ladys behavior I'm glad that I didn't vote in favor of her greenmail reform. Now I have to ask: What is greenmail anyway? Seriously I don't know what it is.

Greenmail is when an investment group or really rich person buys up stock that is usually undervalued, all with the threat to break up a company and sell off the pieces to make a quick profit, but often really looking to have the company pay them off, buying back their shares at a higher price, thus giving the investor a quick profit, but no profit for other shareholders.  This happened to Disney back in 1984, when Saul Steinberg's Reliance Group, with the financial support of Drexel Burnham Lambert, threatened to take over undervalued Disney, which was a fairly stagnant company at the time, and break it up, selling off the pieces.  To keep that from happening, the company tried to quickly buy other corporations, including buying Gibson Greeting cards, in order to build up debt and make itself unappealing, called a poison pill defense.  Eventually, Disney agreed to pay off Steinberg to the tune of an instant $ 60 million profit.  Disney was later sued by shareholders, who claimed that they had to offer all shareholders the same profit, and Disney settled for about $45 million.  The whole episode was a big reason for the ouster of Ron Miller and for the Disney Board bringing in Frank Wells and Michael Eisner to run Disney.  Disney seemed nervous recently that Comcast might be another unwanted suitor, but this time there was no greenmail.

Oh, and I have to politely disagree with EpcotFan about the value of stock options.   Of course, these options might help to retain employees, but all of Disney's top employees are really well compensated, and they often leave anyway, to go run other companies (all the really ambitious ones, like  Steve Bollenbach, Gary Wilson, Matt Ouimet, Paul Pressler, Brian Roberts, etc. want to run a company, and know that won't happen at Disney).  If the goal is to "tie the executive's financial interests to those of the company's owners," stock options, which often are never turned into real, long-held stock, really doesn't do that.  Often, the stock options are only turned into stock if the stock goes way up in value, only to have the stock immediately sold off for a profit.  Actually giving executives real Disney stock and making them hold onto a certain percentage of it while at the company would connect them to the company and other stockholders much better, really.

It was great finally meeting you at the shareholders meeting, Jim! Carol and I were also thrilled not only that Disney decided to hold the convention in New Orleans, where we live, but also for all the help they've given this city and the gulf coast before and after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita -- and the wonderful news of their continued involvement to help in the future, one of which is the upcoming Disney animated feature "The Frog Prince." Randy Newman and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band sounded fabulous and I even stood up waving my white hankerchief above my head, second-line style, as some of the shareholders gave them a standing ovation following their performance. Okay, perhaps it was just my wife Carol and me standing up, I was too consumed by the moment to really notice ;)

You were right behind us in the meeting's theater, so maybe you saw if it was more than the two of us standing.

About the free mug (also a free pin was given out as shareholders entered the theater -- it shows the front cover of the annual report), you wrote "Once the Q & A portion of the meeting was over, shareholders filed out of the hall. Where they were then handed a free "Disney Environmentality" travel mug which had been made from recyclable materials... this green clear plastic mug..."

Although it might have been "green" in more than just the color of it, I couldn't help notice that it was made in China. I've posted about this on the Disney Echo here: http://new.disneyecho.emuck.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?s=adb8739edc79d426494f9905eed811c6;act=ST;f=10;t=12722;st=34 ...where among the things I wrote about it was this:

- - -

Not one to "look a gift horse in the mouth" but also not one to shy away from pointing out hypocrisy..."

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(here I point to another Disney Echo topic about global warming)

- - -

the transparent green commuter mug, while a wonderful cup with lid (I'm drinking my coffee from it now) has "Disney Environmentality™" printed on it below the stainless steel rim. Yes, Disney got a trademark for that phrase.

China was specifically exempted from the Kyoto treaty and it has so much pollution that the latest predictions are it will overtake the U.S. "in 2009 -- nearly a decade ahead of previous predictions -- as the biggest emitter of the main gas linked to global warming."

- - -

(I give the source to the NY Times article on the Disney Echo)

- - -

Also, even today, "Uncontrolled fires in China's abandoned coal mines release as much carbon dioxide as the entire nation of Japan does from useful fuel consumption.".

- - -

(Source given on the Echo, too)

- - -

And Disney has been called to task before about using cheap labor in China, something even more hypocritical this year when the U.S. Congress has passed a raise in the federal minimum wage law. The workers in China who made this "Disney Environmentality™" mug make even less per hour than the current U.S. minimum wage.

To Disney's credit, however, the free pin given out (which shows an image of this year's annual shareholder report cover on it) has printed on the back of it "Proudly Made in U.S.A.". At least they got that one right.

- - -

Carol and I are writing our thoughts about the shareholders meeting on the Echo and I invite any readers of this to check it out.

Hope to see you in a New Orleans again, Jim, when Disney's "The Frog Princess" has its world premEAR in the Superdome after Disney's Mardi Gras-style parade through the French Quarter! I agree with you, I think that's a pretty sure bet to happen, especially after how successful Disney did a similar thing for their Hunchback of Notre Dame animated feature. Hey! It's another example of cloning and improving a popular Disney "attraction"!! :-D

-Rich

svonkco said:

"Oh, and I have to politely disagree with EpcotFan about the value of stock options."

I will politely disagree, as well. I think the advent of stock options has been one of THE worst things to happen in corporate America in the last 100 years.

To quote Jim ... "Why is that, you ask??"

Well it's simple ... because the original theory behind stock options was that you were tying senior executive performance to company performance. They'd be incented to keep the company running in the black, which would drive the stock price up, and then allow them to cash in on the company's outstanding performance.

This is, without a doubt, the greatest fraud perpetrated on the American stockholder. Without any sort of timeline attached to the options, there's no incentive to ACTUALLY make the company profitable and successful for anything more than the immediate future. What this often means is CEO's are actually DIS-incented from looking out for the long-term health and well-being of the corporation they run.

Their only goal becomes driving the stock price high enough that they can cash in and hit a huge payday before opting out with their golden parachute (further enriching them). They often leave a stripped down company in their wake. A company that has been tooled for nothing but immediate profit ... this is most frequently accomplished by driving down expenses to rock bottom levels. Cutting raises for rank and file workers, cutting back on benefits, "downsizing" (God I hate that term), outsourcing, etc.

What the company looks like after they leave is none of their concern. I was glad to hear that Congress is seriously considering forcing companies who grant stock options to tie them to some sort of long term cash-in conditions. CEO's would be forced to hang on to them for x number of years before selling them, which would mean they'd have to focus more on the company's long-term performance and less on what Wall Street thinks right this minute.

WDWacky: I can's say how stock options work at Disney, I'm  little more familiar with the high tech sector. Options are supposed to have a timeline attached to the options. Most packages I have seen including ones I've had as an engineer vest incrementally over 4 to 5 years. Perhaps the term should be longer for execs to provide an additional incentive over the long term of a company. Interestingly enough Mike Eisner ended up becoming one of Disney's largest shareholders by virtue of all the options he received and retained--unfortunately he still hurt the company in the latter part of his term despite the amount of stock he owned. (I do think that executive compensation as a whole have gotten out of hand. As a shareholder I have a hard time with executive collecting big bonus packages even when the company's business is not doing well).

The language in this article makes me quite uncomfortable. Overcoming rudeness with rudeness surely does not work. How about some compassion? Equanimity even?

Let's please not forget also that women are frequently pushed to the sidelines, ignored, and unheard. Could that not be a contributing factor to Ms. Davis' need to be more aggressive? The Disney Company's commitment to anti-oppression and diversity is not exactly stellar. (I would, of course, welcome evidence to the contrary.)

Amazing that people will accept Disney’s slick dog and pony show, but doesn’t feel it necessary to maintain focus on important issues as why Bob Iger got about 25 million dollars last year while it’s workers low paying jobs are being outsourced.   That Disney chooses to parade costume characters and hand out mugs but has chosen not to fully disclose the details surrounding the lawsuit over Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  As long as Disney shows profit, the shareholders seem to not care how Disney obtain that creative material.  That  Iger and the board of directors can rename the main team Disney building The Michael Eisner Building despite it being adorned with sculptured artwork (seven dwarfs) by artists they could easily kick out from a film of Walt Disney’s era.  No proper pay?  Rewriting history to coverup?  No questions asked?   Hey fellow shareholder, if you want to feed your appetite for  slick artwork, check out Disney’s website and other published books.  The annual shareholders meeting has become nothing more than a tool for which Disney redirects your attention elsewhere.

 Brrr said:

"Let's please not forget also that women are frequently pushed to the sidelines, ignored, and unheard. Could that not be a contributing factor to Ms. Davis' need to be more aggressive? The Disney Company's commitment to anti-oppression and diversity is not exactly stellar. (I would, of course, welcome evidence to the contrary.)"

How about some evidence to support your position first?? This may be one of the most outrageous statements I've ever read on this site.

I'd LOVE to see you provide one shred of evidence to support this statement.

Wow.  Rich, highly paid executives being irked by an old lady.  Is there no end to the injustice?

I read the interesting article about Ms. Davis and must admit that, by her very irreverence, she adds an interesting dynamic to shareholder meetings (reminiscent of Fred Allen's classic radio show) and seems to to have pushed through a lot of positive reform through her sheer tenacity.

However, I do take exception to her insinuation about John Lassiter's personal appearance (I think she was trying to be funny) and her objection to what she considered a long-winded presentation on animation. How could one not grasp that this was the essence of Disney's business, and the reason all of them were there in the first place?