Word: eisner
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...sell its pieces to the highest bidders. But someone at Disney must have wished upon a star -- maybe all 30,000 employees did. After sliding within a cricket's whisker of defeat in 1984, Disney has come chirping back. Cheerleading a staff of go-team-go executives, Chairman Michael Eisner, 46, and President Frank Wells, 56, have pulled off one of the most dazzling corporate turnarounds since Lee Iacocca steered Chrysler back from the brink. Says Sid Bass, the Texas billionaire whose family has earned a paper profit of more than $800 million as the largest investors in Disney: "This...
Rather than merely preserving Disney as a dusty institution, though, Eisner and company have reanimated its fantasy factory with their own ideas. Such characters as Mickey, Donald and Pluto are now being joined by the likes of Roger Rabbit, Webbigail VanderQuack and Georgette the poodle. From movies to theme parks to television to retail products, Disney is the hottest all-around entertainment maker in America. And maybe beyond: the most popular children's TV program in China, seen by nearly 200 million viewers each Sunday evening, is the 1 1/2-year-old Mickey and Donald Show...
...Wells, that seems to be part of an unwritten job description: to act as the sensible alter ego to the irrepressible Eisner. At Disney, unlike most corporations, it is the chairman who comes up with some of the most outlandish schemes, which subordinates must either make happen or give the boss a good reason why not. "We all live in mortal terror that Michael will come up with ten new ideas a day," says Robert Fitzpatrick, president of Euro Disneyland. Eisner once proposed building a skyscraper hotel in the shape of Mickey. But much of the time Eisner is only...
...with Eisner at the helm, Disney has not lost its obsessive attention to detail. Eisner aims to impress Parisians with a fluent opening-day speech at Euro Disneyland four years from now, so he has dusted off a college French textbook and hired a French-speaking limousine driver through a want ad. Walking through Disneyland one Sunday afternoon, he peered at the plastic | leaves on the Swiss Family Robinson tree house, noting that they periodically wear out and need to be replaced leaf by leaf at a cost of $500,000. As his family strolled the park...
...Eisner is no doubt the best-paid grounds keeper in America. Last year he earned a bonus of nearly $6 million on top of his $750,000 salary, based on a formula that takes into account the company's profits. Besides that, Eisner and Wells hold 3.84 million shares of stock and stock options that were given to them as an incentive when they came aboard the struggling company. If they exercised all their options and sold the shares at the current price of 56, they would net $160 million between them...