Dive Brief:

• Disney shareholder Trian Fund Management will nominate its founder and activist investor Nelson Peltz as well as former Disney CFO Jay Rasulo to the company’s board, the company announced Thursday.
• The nomination of Rasulo, who logged a 30-year tenure at Disney, as a potential director is the latest salvo in the ongoing tug-of-war surrounding the entertainment giant’s leadership. The most recent proxy battle comes as Disney struggles to adjust to shifts in its executive leadership and dips in its streaming businesses, among other headwinds.  
• “The Disney I know and love has lost its way,” Rasulo said in a statement included in the announcement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “As independent voices in the boardroom, Nelson and I are confident that the combination of my decades of experience at Disney, Nelson’s significant boardroom skills and history of driving positive strategic change, and our combined consumer brands expertise and financial acumen, will be additive to the Disney Board.”

Dive Insight:

Disney acknowledged the nominations in a terse statement Thursday, noting its governance and nominating committee would evaluate the director nominees. Disney also said in its response that the company’s board is “experienced, diverse and highly qualified.”

Rasulo spent three-decades at Disney, serving in roles including chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Worldwide and president of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts as well as in a five-year stint as CFO from 2010 to 2015, according to Trian’s announcement.

The move to name Rasulo as a new board member — drawing on his previous experience in Disney’s top financial seat — is a potentially savvy step by Trian and Peltz as they renew their tussle over the entertainment goliath’s future. The company stepped away from its first clash with Disney after the entertainment company pledged to cut costs in February, announcing its intent to lay off 7,000 workers and reduce $5.5 billion in costs.

Trian reignited its proxy battle against Disney in November, citing low investor confidence and ongoing strategic questions which loomed over the company’s future, according to a report by CNN. Peltz’s bid to join the company’s board was rejected just a few weeks ago by Disney, with Trian pledging to “take our case for change directly to the shareholders” in a Nov. 30 statement.

The statement came after Peltz received fresh support from another notable Disney veteran, Ike Perlmutter.  The former Marvel executive entrusted his shares in Disney to Trian in October — bringing its total shares in Disney to 33 million or granting it approximately 1.8% ownership of the company, according to a previous report from The Wall Street Journal.

Perlmutter, who was terminated from his position as head of Marvel in March and has long had a strained relationship with returning CEO Bog Iger, noted that he could no longer watch Disney “underachieve its great potential,” according to the WSJ.  

Perlmutter and Rasulo have joined forces with Trian as it lays the responsibility for slumping investor confidence at the feet of current leadership. Disney appointed former Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman and former CEO of Sky Jeremey Darroch as members of its board in November, additions that represent an improvement to the status quo but “will not, in our view, restore investor confidence or address the root cause behind the significant value destruction and missteps that this Board has overseen,” Trian said in November.

The company echoed that view Thursday, noting that the company’s earnings per share were lower for its most recent fiscal year than those generated by the company a decade prior, and that for shareholders, “this subpar performance has destroyed value.” The turnaround meant to be shepherded by returning CEO Iger has also not materialized, the company argued.

Since retaking the CEO seat, Iger has worked to bolster Disney’s performance in key areas, including shoring up the company’s flagging streaming segment. But he has done so in the face of an actors and writers strike, a shareholder lawsuit, and other wide scale changes in the company’s executive leadership.

The company reported mixed fourth quarter and full-year earnings in early November, narrowing its streaming losses to $387 million compared to $1.4 billion from the prior year period. However, Disney also reported $1.02 billion in impairment and restructuring charges for the quarter, including $22 million in severance charges and $137 million “primarily for impairments of licensed content to align with the strategic change in our approach to content curation,” according to its earnings release.

The reignited proxy battle also comes just a few weeks after Disney’s new CFO is settling into his role. After long-time finance chief Christine McCarthy abruptly stepped down from her position in June, the company appointed PepsiCo alum Hugh Johnston to its CFO seat effective Dec. 4. Johnston has previously had his own spats with Trian as the two companies vied over the future of PepsiCo for three years before Trian ultimately exited its stake in the beverage brand in 2016.

Disney and Trian declined to comment past the details included in their respective statements.