Month: April 2024

At Disney’s virtual 2024 meeting of shareholders on Wednesday, members rejected nominees allied with activist investor Nelson Peltz‘s effort to win seats on their Board of Directors. Peltz, 81 who heads investment firm Trian Partners, failed to get enough votes in his favor to clinch a board seat (as did Trian’s other nominee, ex-Disney Jay Rasulo).

The company announced that the majority of shareholders voted in support of a 12-person slate of board nominees put forward by Disney (including CEO Bob Iger), ending a months-long proxy battle centered on the company’s navigation of the onset of the streaming era. Trian Partners had leveraged its standing as one of Disney’s largest shareholders to carry out a high-profile campaign critical of the company’s growth strategy. Peltz sought board seats for himself as well as former Disney Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo, calling on shareholders to deliver them the seats currently held by Maria Elena Lagomasino and Michael Froman.

Per Variety, preliminary results show that Iger won reelection with 94% of the votes cast in his favor, with Peltz receiving just 31% and Rasulo much less. Maria Elena Lagomasino, the incumbent Disney director, received twice as many votes as Peltz and five times as many as Rasulo. Investors voted on three competing board candidate slates — Disney’s own recommended 12-member lineup; Trian’s nominees, Peltz and Rasulo; and three from investment firm Blackwells Capital, which also did not get enough votes to win board seats.

Iger said in a statement: “I want to thank our shareholders for their trust and confidence in our board and management. With the distracting proxy contest now behind us, we’re eager to focus 100% of our attention on our most important priorities: growth and value creation for our shareholders and creative excellence for our consumers.”

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Two brothers pleaded guilty on Wednesday to insider trading in securities in the company that ultimately took former President Donald Trump’s media business public.

According to federal prosecutors in New York, Michael Shvartsman, 53, and Gerald Shvartsman, 46, made millions by trading in shares of Digital World Acquisition Corporation before it merged with Trump Media. Michael Shvartsman, head of Miami-based venture capital firm Rocket One Capital, and Gerald Shvartsman, 46, each pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud before U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan. Rocket One’s chief investment officer, Bruce Garelick, is scheduled to face trial on related charges on April 29.

Reuters reports that prosecutors charged the trio last year with illegally trading on inside information about Trump Media & Technology Group’s (TMTG) plan to go public through a merger with a blank-check company. TMTG operates Truth Social, Trump’s main social media platform.  It is alleged that the trio signed confidentiality agreements in June 2021, when they were approached to become early investors in Digital World Acquisition, the blank-check company, which required them to keep information they learned confidential and not trade the company’s securities in the open market.  Prosecutors say that after hearing the company was in merger talks with TMTG, the trio tipped others and bought Digital World securities, selling them after the deal was announced on Oct. 20, 2021, to make a total of $22 million in illegal profit.

Per ABC News, each of the men face up to 20 years in prison when they’re sentenced in July, but prosecutors have agreed to recommend a sentence of about three years. There was no evidence that former President Trump was aware of the brothers’ conduct, and he was not part of the case.

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On Tuesday, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a bill passed by the Republican-controlled legislature that would have banned transgender young people from participating in student sport activities that align with their chosen gender identity, and not based on sex assigned at birth. Assembly Bill 37 had passed both chambers of the Republican-controlled state legislature in a 63-35 party-line vote in October, followed by the state’s Senate approval weeks ago in a 21-11 vote. The legislation would have forced those who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming to play on the sports teams consistent with their gender assigned at birth.

Evers posted a video of himself vetoing the bill on social media, writing: “I just vetoed Republicans’ anti-LGBTQ bill to ban trans and gender nonconforming kids from participating in school sports teams that align with their gender identity. LGBTQ kids deserve our love and respect and support just like any other kid.”

Evers said in his veto message: “I believe this bill fails to comport with our Wisconsin values. We expect our kids to treat each other with kindness, respect, empathy and compassion, and we should be able to expect adults to lead by example.”

Evers – a former teacher, principal and school superintendent – said in his veto message that this type of legislation “harms LGBTQ Wisconsinites’ and kids’ mental health, emboldens anti-LGBTQ harassment, bullying, and violence, and threatens the safety and dignity of LGBTQ Wisconsinites, especially our LGBTQ kids.”  The two-term Democratic governor vowed that as long as he is governor, he will not allow for “radical policies targeting LGBTQ individuals and families and threatening LGBTQ folks’ everyday lives and their ability to be safe, valued, supported, and welcome being who they are.”

Per ABC News, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association requires transgender athletes to undergo hormone therapy before they can play on the teams of their choice. The association’s policy is modeled after NCAA requirements for transgender athletes.

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After seven aid workers with the food-relief charity World Central Kitchen were killed during an Israel Defense Forces attack in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Tuesday his country’s forces had “unintentionally hit innocent people” in the Gaza Strip in the past day. Netanyahu said: “Israel deeply regrets the tragic incident which claimed the lives of seven humanitarian aid workers. Our hearts go out to their families and to their home countries. The IDF is conducting a swift and transparent investigation and we will make our findings public. Israel is fully committed to enabling humanitarian aid to reach the civilian population in Gaza and we will do everything in our power to ensure that such tragedies do not occur in the future.”

The U.S.-based nonprofit group, founded by celebrity chef José Andrés, said it was immediately pausing its operations in the region and Cyprus, adding that ships carrying aid were turning back after the incident. Andrés wrote on X: “@WCKitchen lost several of our sisters and brothers in an IDF air strike in Gaza. I am heartbroken and grieving for their families and friends and our whole WCK family. These are people…angels…I served alongside in Ukraine, Gaza, Turkey, Morocco, Bahamas, Indonesia. They are not faceless…they are not nameless. The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon. No more innocent lives lost. Peace starts with our shared humanity. It needs to start now.”

World Central Kitchen CEO Erin Gore said in a statement:“World Central Kitchen is pausing operations immediately in the region. We will be making decisions about the future of our work soon …This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is unforgivable.” The dead included Australian, Polish, British and Palestinian aid workers; one worker was a dual American-Canadian citizen, the organization said.

Per NBC News, Israel Defense Forces initially would not confirm that it was responsible for the deaths, and said that it would be opening a probe into the incident. However hours later Netanyahu said upon leaving a hospital (where he had undergone a hernia operation): “Unfortunately, in the last day, there was a tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people in the Gaza Strip. It happens in war, we check it to the end, we are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again.”

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