MUMBAI: Shareholders of The Walt Disney Company at the 2008 Annual Meeting elected all 12 members of the Board of Directors and supported Board recommendations on the company’s auditor and stock and executive compensation plans, based on preliminary results.
Disney chairman John E. Pepper Jr. welcomed shareholders to the first Annual Meeting ever to be held by Disney in New Mexico and introduced members of the Board of Directors. Noting the impressive creative and financial performance of Disney in 2007, Pepper said that, "in an increasingly challenging environment," the executive team "continues to manage and grow the company skillfully."
"Building real long-term value for shareholders remains their top priority," he added, "and their quest for making tomorrow better than today is relentless."
"It is a great time to be at The Walt Disney Company. We have enormous creative momentum, inventing new hits and sustaining perennial favorites like never before," said Disney president and CEO Robert A. Iger in remarks to investors. "We are using the latest technology to enhance our creativity and distribute our entertainment in all kinds of exciting and innovative ways. And we’ve developed what we believe is real competitive advantage in an ever more cluttered media world, one that will serve your company well in the years and decades to come."
Iger also welcomed to the meeting the Martinez family of Albuquerque, who helped transform through hard work, dedication and sacrifice an area of the city once known as ‘The War Zone’ into a new and better place called ‘God’s Block’. In light of the family’s sacrifice, ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition together with hundreds of local volunteers came together to give them a proper thank you by building them a new home from which they could continue their mission of helping to change the lives of those most in need.
Based on preliminary results, the following directors were re-elected to the Board:
· Susan Arnold
· John E. Bryson
· John S. Chen
· Judith L. Estrin
· Robert A. Iger
· Steven P. Jobs
· Fred H. Langhammer
· Aylwin B. Lewis
· Monica C. Lozano
· Robert W. Matschullat
· John E. Pepper Jr.
· Orin C. Smith
Shareholders also ratified the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company’s independent accountants for the fiscal year ending 27 September and approved an increase in the maximum number of shares of stock under the company’s Amended and Restated 2005 Stock Incentive Plan. Finally, shareholders approved terms of the Amended and Restated 2002 Executive Performance Plan.
Final voting tallies are subject to certification by the company’s inspector of elections, and will be included in the company’s next quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
