Did Disney defraud investors by putting woke politics over profits?
One part of the ESG movement has been to treat wokeness as an investor benefit and deviations from leftist agendas an investment risk. For example, environmentalist movements have targeted energy companies, accusing them of fraud and violating the trust of investors, by failing to disclose that the planet will explode unless everyone drives Teslas.
Interestingly enough, Disney has disclosed its wokeness as a risk to the SEC.
“Generally, our revenues and profitability are adversely impacted when our entertainment offerings and products, as well as our methods to make our offerings and products available to consumers, do not achieve sufficient consumer acceptance. Further, consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands.”
That is an admission that Disney’s efforts to “achieve certain of our environmental and social goals” are harming its profitability.
The question then is why should investors tolerate behavior by a company that is damaging its bottom line?
What if Bob Iger were just wasting $100 million in company money to make a movie about how great his left shoe is? Instead, hundreds of millions, when accounting for marketing costs, were wasted on Marvels. That adds to the burning woke dumpster fire of cash dumped on woke disasters like Strange World or the live-action Little Mermaid remake.
Disney shareholders are suffering because of the politics of its leadership. The company has admitted that. The question is will shareholders go on putting more money behind Disney’s money-losing woke politics?
And the added question is how long did Disney know that its woke politics were harming its profits without disclosing that?
Can its failure to disclose that be considered defrauding investors?
Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield
