Eisner Tells 'Nightline' He's Staying On

March 4, 2004 — -- Disney boss Michael Eisner talked with Nightline's Ted Koppel after 43 percent of the company's shareholders withheld their support for him.

TED KOPPEL: It has been a very long and trying day for Michael Eisner. When this day began he was Chairman of the Board, and CEO of the Disney Company. By this evening, you've given up one of the titles I gather. That happened when, Michael?

MICHAEL EISNER: We decided, the board decided, that this movement in America to separate the non-executive chairman and the CEO was something we had been considering, and getting our company into contemporary governance and we did it today, we heard our shareholders who seemed to be interested in that, so we went ahead and did it.

KOPPEL: There is an inclination to suggest to you that it may be too little too late. What do you think?

EISNER: Well I think our performance is fantastic. Our stock went up 60 percent in the last year. We just had a 33 cent quarter, after a five cent quarter the year before in the same period. We're looking at 30 percent growth this year, double-digit growth over the next three or four years. Performance is not an issue at the Walt Disney Company, so I don't think it has anything to do with that.

KOPPEL: I guess my question is do you think this will be enough to keep your critics at bay, and judging by the number of shareholders who voted against you today, you got a few critics out there.

EISNER: Well, American corporations have critics, and certainly we had critics because we didn't have a separation of the chairman and the CEO duties. We've had some historic critics that we didn't deliver on corporate governance fast enough. Certainly there must have been people out there that were dissatisfied with our performance post 9/11 and the wars in Iraq, and our tourism dropped during that period. The messages that we're getting from that kind of vote are multiple, and they're about corporate America, they're about messages to other corporations, and there obviously certain people that are not happy with me, personally, I guess.