The Walt Disney Company
500 South Buena Vista Street
Burbank, CA 91521
Phone: 1-818-560-1000
http://disney.go.com 1
Incorporation: Originally incorporated in California in September 1938 as Walt Disney
Productions. Name changed to The Walt Disney Company on Feb. 6, 1986.
Reincorporated in Delaware in February 1987. 2
Ticker symbol: DIS 3
CUSIP number4: 254687
DUNS number5: 932660376
Primary NAICS code: 512110 - Motion Picture and Video Production 6
Secondary NAICS codes7:
512120 - Motion Picture and Video Distribution
531210 - Offices of Real Estate Agents and Brokers
531312 - Nonresidential Property Managers
713110 - Amusement and Theme Parks
Officers8:
Robert A. (Bob) Iger, president, CEO and director
2006 compensation: $2 million base salary, $22,376,297 total compensation
Thomas O. (Tom) Staggs, senior executive vice president and CFO
2006 compensation: $1,037,500 base salary, $9,496,120 total compensation
John E. Pepper Jr., chairman9
2006 compensation: Elevated to chairman in 2007; will receive approximately
$545,000 excluding stock deferrals and stock options.
Number of employees: 133,000 in 2006
10
Total sales in 2006: $34,285,000,000 11; $31.94 billion 12
Net worth: $31,820,000,000 as of September 2006 13
Total assets ($59,998,000,000) - Total liabilities: $28,178,000,000)
Total stores or sites 14:
228 affiliated stations in the ABC Television Network
Nine very high frequency (VHF) television stations, six in top 10 U.S.
markets.
One ultra-high frequency (UHF) television station.
21 cable television stations in the United State. Also operates in 20
markets outside of the United States.
4,400 affiliated radio stations
Walt Disney World Resort and Disney Cruise Line in Florida
Disneyland Resort in California
ESPN Zone facilities in eight U.S. cities.
51 percent of Disneyland Resort Paris
43 percent Hong Kong Disneyland
Walt Disney Imagineering unit
Walt Disney Pictures and Television (subsidiary, products distributed
through Walt Disney Pictures and Touchstone Pictures)
Miramax Film Corp.
The Disney Store (103 stores primarily in Europe; more than 300 stores in
North America were sold to a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Children’s
Place in 2005)
Fiscal year end: September 15
Traded on which exchanges: NYSE and PCX16, Philadelphia Stock exchange17
Transfer agent18: Disney Shareholder Services
500 So Buena Vista MC 9722
Burbank, CA 91521-9722
Phone: (818) 553-7200
Primary bank: Bank of America, N.A., Los Angeles, CA, United States 19
Auditors: PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Los Angeles, CA, United States 20
Major products and/or brands: Motion picture and television production,
amusement park, land management, consumer products, licensing use of
copyrighted characters21
Benefits offered to employees: Dental Insurance, Life Insurance, Medical Insurance 22
Employment applications procedures: Prospective employees are sought through
advertisements in newspapers, trade journals and on-campus recruiting. Hiring is
handled by the personnel office, and promotions are handled from within. Direct
inquiries to Staffing Services at the corporate headquarters. 23
Major subsidiaries24:
ABC, Inc.
o ABC Radio Network, Inc.
o ABC Sports, Inc.
o Buena Vista Television
o Disney ABC Cable Networks Group (A&E Television Networks,
ABC Family Worldwide, Inc.; Disney Channel Worldwide;
E! Entertainment Television; ESPN, Inc.; Jetix Europe N.V.;
Lifetime Entertainment Services; SOAPnet LLC)
Hyperion
Touchstone Television Productions, LLC
Buena Vista Games, Inc.
Disney Publishing Worldwide
Euro Disney S.C.A.
Pixar Animation Studios, Inc.
The Walt Disney Company, Ltd.
Walt Disney Internet Group
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, LLC
The Walt Disney Studios
o Hollywood Records
o Miramax Film Corp
o Walt Disney Feature Animation
o Walt Disney Home Entertainment
Top competitors: CBS Corp., News Corp., Time Warner 25
International sales: The company has operations worldwide, but 77 percent of its sales
occur in the United States and Canada. The 2006 sales breakdowns26:
United States and Canada
Europe
Asia/Pacific
Latin America and other regions
Dollars in millions Percentage of total
26,555
77
5,266
15
1,917
6
537
2
Rankings27: No. 63 on Fortune 500; No. 121 on Financial Time Global 500
Brief history:
Walt Disney and his brother, Roy, formed the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in
Hollywood in 1923, although the name would soon change to Walt Disney Studio at his
brother’s suggestion. Walt Disney had sold a short cartoon about a girl named Alice to a
New York distributor in October 1923, and he would make films about that character for
the next four years. In 1927, Walt Disney created Oswald the Lucky Rabbit but lost the
rights to the character in a feud with the distributor. That forced Disney to create a new
character, and the result was Mickey Mouse. Steamboat Willie, actually the third cartoon
featuring Mickey, was released on November 18, 1928 and was an immediate sensation.
Walt Disney did not rely on Mickey alone to build the company; other cartoons were also
critically acclaimed with the studios winning the first eight Academy Awards for best
cartoon starting with 1932’s Flowers and Trees. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,
released in 1937 after three years of production, made Disney a worldwide name.
Unfortunately, World War II cut off Disney’s access to foreign markets and its next few
films were unable to recoup production costs. The company survived during the war by
producing propaganda and training films for the military. Finally, in 1950, the company
moved toward regaining its pre-war footing. That year, the company produced its first
completely live-action film, Treasure Island, its first post-war animated full-length film,
Cinderella, and made its first foray into television at Christmas. In 1954, the Disneyland
anthology series premiered and would run 29 years through six title changes and all three
networks. As the company’s television and film production grew, Walt Disney began
planning the Disneyland theme park in California, which opened on July 15, 1955 with
enough fanfare that television audiences watched from home. Disney died in 1966,
leaving brother Roy to oversee the development of 28,000 acres in Florida that would
become Walt Disney World (Disneyland was a mere 400 acres). Roy Disney died two
months after the park opened on October 1, 1971. The 1980s were a period of
tremendous growth for the company, as EPCOT and Tokyo Disneyland opened, the
Disney Channel premiered (1983) and Touchstone Pictures was created. Resisting
takeover attempts, the company hired Michael Eisner and Frank Wells as CEO and
president in October 1984. The pair would further expand Disney’s holdings, launching
Touchstone Television (Golden Girls) in addition to syndicating films for television and
releasing animated classics on videocassette. Live-action releases were immensely
successful and animation enjoyed a renaissance starting with the Little Mermaid (1989)
and Beauty and the Beast (1991). Disney moved into publishing with Hyperion Books,
and in 1994, branched out onto Broadway by turning Beauty and the Beast into a stage
production and would later win a Tony award with The Lion King. In 1995, the company
teamed with Pixar to produce the first computer-animated feature length film, Toy Story,
the beginning of an immensely successful partnership. Disney made itself a major media
player in 1996 when it purchased Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion, at the time the
second largest transaction in U.S. history. The purchase brought Disney the ABC
network, 10 television stations, 21 radio stations, seven daily newspapers and several
cable networks, including ESPN. Throughout this period, the company expanded its
theme park division, most notably with Euro Disney (now Disneyland Paris) and the
Disney Cruise line. In 2005, the polarizing Eisner stepped down as CEO and was
replaced by Robert (Bob) Iger, who immediately signed a deal with Apple to have its
TV shows broadcast on iPod and then acquired Pixar — signaling the company’s
turnaround from an early decade decline. Today, 43 percent of Disney’s revenue comes
from the media networks, 29 percent from its parks and resorts, 22 percent from studio
entertainment and six percent from consumer products.
For additional information, please consult:
Hoovers’s Company Records : in-depth records. Online. LexisNexis Academic.
4 February 2007.
Pearlman, C. (2004). The Walt Disney Company in International directory of company
histories (Vol. 63, pp. 433-438). Chicago : St. James Press.
The Walt Disney Co. Company history. Retrieved Feb. 1, 2007 from
http://corporate.disney.go.com/corporate/complete_history.html
1
www.corporateinformation.com/; http://corporate.disney.go.com/ Both retrieved February 1, 2007.
Mergent Industrial Manual (vol. 1). New York : Mergent. 2005.
3
www.corporateinformation.com/ Retrieved February 1, 2007.
4
Standard & Poor's Register of Corporations. Online. LexisNexis Academic. 4 February 2007.
5
Federal Procurement Data Center (fpdc.gov). Retrieved February 1, 2007.
6
Standard & Poor's Register of Corporations. Online. LexisNexis Academic. 4 February 2007.
7
Standard & Poor's Register of Corporations. Online. LexisNexis Academic. 4 February 2007.
8
Mr. Iger and Mr. Staggs’ salaries from U.S. Executive Compensation Database : boards and committees.
Online. LexisNexis Academic. 4 February 2007.
9
Mr. Pepper’s salary from the 2007 proxy report at
http://media.disney.go.com/investorrelations/proxy/proxy_2007.pdf and from data from U.S. Executive
Compensation Database : boards and committees.
10
Hoover’s Company Records : in-depth records. Online. LexisNexis Academic. 4 February 2007.
11
Hoover’s Company Records : in-depth records. Online. LexisNexis Academic. 4 February 2007.
12
Standard & Poor's Register of Corporations. Online. LexisNexis Academic. 4 February 2007.
13
Data used for calculation from Hoovers.com/ Retrieved February 1, 2007.
14
2006 10-K form located at http://corporate.disney.go.com/investors/company_filings.html
15
www.corporateinformation.com/ Retrieved February 1, 2007.
16
http://corporate.disney.go.com/. Retrieved February 1, 2007.
17
Hoover’s Company Records : in-depth records. Online. LexisNexis Academic. 4 February 2007.
18
http://corporate.disney.go.com/investors/shareholder_faq.html
19
Standard & Poor's Register of Corporations. Online. LexisNexis Academic. 4 February 2007.
20
Standard & Poor's Register of Corporations. Online. LexisNexis Academic. 4 February 2007.
21
Standard & Poor's Register of Corporations. Online. LexisNexis Academic. 4 February 2007.
22
The National job bank, 18th ed. Brighton, Mass. : B. Adams. 2002.
23
The Career guide : Dun’s employment opportunities directory. Parsippany, N.J. : Dun’s Marketing
Services. 1995.
24
www.hoovers.com/ Retrieved February 1, 2007.
25
www.hoovers.com/ Retrieved February 1, 2007.
26
Table data from Hoover’s Company Records : in-depth records. Online. LexisNexis Academic.
4 February 2007.
27
Hoover’s Company Records : in-depth records. Online. LexisNexis Academic. 4 February 2007.
2