Disney grew thanks to parks and resorts. Then came covid-19
The firm has diversified into exactly the wrong businesses for a pandemic
A LONG TIME ago in a galaxy far, far away—February, to be precise—Bob Iger quit as head of a wildly successful company. Disney ruled the box office, with seven of the ten biggest hits of 2019. It had just launched a streaming service, Disney+, to take on Netflix. And it had completed a $69bn debt-fuelled acquisition of 21st Century Fox. In Mr Iger’s 14 years in charge, the firm’s share price quintupled. On May 5th he was back, like a Jedi summoned from semi-retirement, to introduce a first-quarter earnings call where Disney suspended its dividend and said covid-19 had caused net profit to fall by 91% from a year ago.
This article appeared in the Graphic detail section of the print edition under the headline “Disney grew thanks to parks and resorts. Then came covid-19”
From the May 9th 2020 edition
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