When Disney (NYSE:DIS) announced a truce between Roy Disney Jr. and incoming chieftain Bob Iger, I wondered whether the SaveDisney.com site that Roy had been running along with his business partner and former board member Stanley Gold would be renamed DisneySaved.com.
Well, in a letter to its website visitors, Roy announced that SaveDisney.com will shut down come August 7. With Roy back in the company's good graces after being given the title of director emeritus and retained as a consultant, any future salvos would result in self-inflicted wounds. However, the end of SaveDisney.com won't put an end to dissecting Disney's flaws. There are way too many hobbyist webmasters and aspiring bloggers with too much to say.
Still, it's a shame to see the site go. There's always something compelling when a descendant of a major corporation takes issue with its present malaise -- like Walter Hewlett going after Carly Fiorina at Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) -- or simply takes back control as Bill Ford Jr. did at Ford (NYSE:F) after 22 years of non-family CEOs. These are public companies with shareholder interests at heart, but there's always an added layer of pride when that corporate moniker happens to be your own last name.
The renewed partnership with Roy Disney is yet another indication that Iger is the diplomatic peacemaker that Disney so critically needs after Michael Eisner's mercurial personality got the better of way too many competent Disney executives. The Gap (NYSE:GPS), DreamWorks Animation (NYSE:DWA), eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), and Pixar (NASDAQ:PIXR) are all run by folks who were once climbing Disney's corporate ladder.
Iger appears ready to do what it takes to disarm critics while keeping the talent pool from draining. For Disney shareholders, it's hard to ask for much more than that.
Some more entertaining headlines:
- The cease-fire in the battle of Disney vs. Disney came as welcome news.
- Iger's timing in embracing the Disney family is perfect: Disneyland is now celebrating its first 50 years of operation.
- Maybe now Iger can repair the company's waning popularity at the box office.
The Gap, eBay, Pixar are all selections of the Motley Fool Stock Advisor newsletter service.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz owns shares of Disney and Pixar. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy .
