Disney CEO Bob Chapek exit pay more likely to hit $23 million

The quantity relies on calculations by Bloomberg Information utilizing disclosures from regulatory filings. Disney hasn’t but publicly disclosed the monetary phrases of the chief govt officer’s departure, and a consultant didn’t reply to a request for remark despatched exterior regular enterprise hours.

Chapek’s contract entitles him to gather a wage for the total period of his time period, even when he’s ousted prematurely. His time period was lately prolonged to mid-2025, and the paychecks between at times add as much as roughly $6.5 million.

He’s additionally entitled to the pension he’s collected over his decades-long profession at Disney. As of October 2021, filings present it stood at $16.9 million. That cash is his, whatever the circumstances of his departure.  

As for the remaining: he most likely will get extra, however it’s unclear simply how a lot.

He holds a trove of Disney inventory choices, although most of them are underwater. If he had exercised his in-the-money securities and instantly offered the shares at Friday’s U.S. market shut, he would have collected round $3.5 million.

He additionally holds inventory awards he acquired in prior years that haven’t but vested. A few of them will doubtless proceed to vest regardless that he’s now not at Disney. How a lot they’ll be price — and what number of securities he’ll obtain — will rely on the shares’ trajectory after they plunged 41% this yr. In the event that they choose again up, each the inventory and the choices will swell in worth.

Lastly, Chapek has a so-called non-qualified deferred compensation plan, which is akin to a super-sized 401(okay) that many giant firms arrange for high-earning staff. It normally lets them make investments a few of their earnings right into a collection of fairness and bond funds. Round a yr in the past, Chapek had about $8.5 million in his plan, a determine that has doubtless modified given the latest market volatility.  

For now, hardly any of that is etched in stone. It’s not unusual for boards to strike bespoke exit agreements with CEOs, particularly in contentious conditions the place they’re reducing the particular person’s contract brief. And if a board concludes {that a} CEO broke firm coverage or didn’t fulfill the commitments of the employment settlement, it could decline to pay the particular person in any respect. (Disney’s assertion asserting Chapek’s departure and the reinstatement of his predecessor, Bob Iger, didn’t present causes for the change.)

Whereas Chapek’s payout by most measures is a beneficiant one, it’s removed from the wealthy entitlements that some chiefs within the leisure business have loved previously. When Chapek took over as CEO in 2020, the board set his goal pay within the backside quartile for media chiefs. The transfer adopted years of controversy over Disney’s govt compensation, the place everybody from shareholders to lawmakers and a Disney household inheritor had derided Iger’s pay.