Disney enters into agreement with Third Point, will add former Meta boss to the board
The Disney+ website on a laptop in the Brooklyn borough of New York, United States, on Monday, July 18, 2022.
Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Disney has reached a deal with activist investor Dan Loeb’s Third Point that includes adding former Meta CEO Carolyn Everson to its board, the companies said Friday.
The deal comes weeks after Third Point took a new stake in Disney valued at about $1[ads1] billion, or 0.4% of the company, and urged the media company to spin off its sports property, ESPN.
Originally, Loeb said breaking off ESPN would give Disney more flexibility to pursue sports betting and other business initiatives. Shortly afterwards, however, Loeb reversed course.
“We have a better understanding of @espn’s potential as a standalone business and another vertical for $DIS to reach a global audience to generate advertising and subscriber revenue,” Loeb said earlier this month in a tweet.
On Friday, Disney said in a public filing that, with support from Third Point, it would add Everson to its board before the November board meeting.
As part of the deal, Third Point agreed to some standstill provisions, including that it would not take a stake in Disney greater than 2% and that it would not solicit proxies or present proposals. Third Point will also not be involved in board nominations, according to the filing.
Everson was at Meta, formerly Facebook, for more than 10 years, where she served as the social media platform’s head of advertising. Although Everson had been considered one of the most prominent women — along with Facebook’s former COO Sheryl Sandberg — she left the company after Marne Levine was promoted to chief business officer last summer.
Most recently, she did a brief stint as president of grocery delivery service Instacart, where she left after just three months. At the time, Instacart and Everson told CNBC that the decision to leave was mutual.
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