The Walt Disney Company is in the middle of a proxy battle with activist investor, Nelson Peltz, who is petitioning to get a seat on the Company’s Board of Directors. Trian Partners nominated Peltz to be elected to the Board, but the current board does not endorse him.

Both Disney and CEO Bob Iger have urged shareholders to vote against Peltz and pals in the upcoming shareholder meeting on April 3rd, with some help from cartoon allies and Walt Disney’s own grandchildren. But now, Peltz has penned a new memo detailing just how poor of a job he thinks Iger is doing.

Trian nominated Peltz and former Disney CFO James Rasulo to the Walt Disney Company board back in December. They released a statement reading, in part, that the group “Believes the Disney Board’s lack of focus, alignment, and accountability has resulted in chronic underperformance at one of the world’s most iconic companies.” And now, Nelson Peltz has released a 133-page white paper detailing what he considers to be Disney’s and Iger’s “failures.”

According to the white paper, the recommendations are “aimed at turning around Disney’s shareholder returns, which have trailed most of its peers.” Because of this, Trian is urging shareholders to vote for Peltz and Rasulo.

“For more than a year, Trian has described its thoughts on strategies and goals, some of which Disney has now implemented, such as reducing excess costs, reinstating a dividend, and making the Parks business a bigger part of Disney’s growth strategy,” the memo says. “We are now making our 100+ page presentation public with our comprehensive views.”

The proposals in the report include taking more “shots on goal” and increasing creative risks outside of core franchises like Netflix does. Disney should, per Trian, “explore allocating more budget dollars across lower-cost, easier-to-produce projects to further balance Disney’s higher-cost franchise content; prioritizing ‘retention’ content spend should diversify away the risk of expensive streaming flops.”

Not only that, but Trian says Disney should make fewer movie sequels, stating that, in their opinion, “Sequels are less risky film ventures to produce, but do not drive long-term benefits in the same way that new IP can.”

As far as ESPN goes, Trian recommends that the new standalone streaming service be launched with a bundle partner like Netflix or Amazon, or that ESPN should “harvest cash out of its linear business to selectively reinvest in ESPN+ and higher growth parts of Disney’s business (such as Disney+).”

Merging Disney+ and Hulu product content to cut costs would create cost efficiencies near $1 billion, Trian says, and that Hulu integration on Disney+ should be phased out, along with Hulu + Live TV being “a loss-leading product that has struggled to scale and adds limited strategic value.”

Disney has previously specified that “the Board does NOT endorse the nominations of Nelson Peltz and James Rasulo put forth by Trian Fund Management, L.P. and its affiliates, led by Nelson Peltz and supported by former Disney executive Isaac Perlmutter (collectively, the “Trian Group”).” The notice went on to say, “The Board recommends that shareholders do not vote for the Trian Group nominees and that they reject a related proposal from the Trian Group to amend the Company Bylaws.”

Disney also made it clear that the Board “does not endorse the nominations of Craig Hatkoff, Jessica Schell and Leah Solivan put forth for election as directors by Blackwells Onshore I LLC, Blackwells Capital LLC and Jason Aintabi (collectively, the “Blackwells Group”).”

We’ll have to wait and see what will end up happening at the annual shareholders meeting on April 3rd, but in the meantime, stay tuned to DFB for the latest Disney news.

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The post Disney CEO Bob Iger Under Attack in NEW 133-Page Memo from Activist Investor first appeared on the disney food blog.