I own a handful of shares of Disney Co. stock, thanks to a brief tenure as a company employee a few years back when Disney purchased Capital Cities/ABC. The network company owned a handful of newspapers, which it sold within a year's time to the Knight Ridder chain. Anyway, my former Cap Cities employee stock plan holdings were converted to Disney stock.
I never really cared or paid that much attention to my status as one of Disney's "owners." Until now.
As a stockholder, I get to contact the company's investor relations department. Here's what I sent them today:
From: John Martellaro
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 1:35 PM
To: 'investor.relations@disneyonline.com'
Subject: breach of fiduciary duty
As a Disney company shareholder, I wish to voice my displeasure and protest with regard to the company's decision to air on the ABC network a controversial mini-series containing fictionalized accounts of government officials' actions supposedly connected with the Sept. 11 attacks. Airing this film constitutes a breach of management's fiduciary duty to me and other stockholders for these reasons:
1. This film is taking up a large block of prime time programming without commercial sponsorship.
2. The false depictions of the actions of several individuals, leading to the deaths of thousands of Americans, opens the company up to potentially huge libel judgments
3. The Sept. 11 attacks remain an open psychological wound in the minds and hearts of millions of Americans. This company has no good reason to air a divisive piece of fiction that pours salt into those wounds, and risks alienating millions of customers and potential customers.
4. Anger against the company as a result of this decision is already being voiced by hundreds of thousands of Americans through petitions, phone calls and letters, and calls for a boycott against the company and its products and services are getting wide play in the news media. This could lead to the loss of millions of dollars in revenue.
If the value of my stock investment suffers as a result of this ill-considered policy, I will be forced to give serious consideration to legal action against the directors for breach of fiduciary duty. Please reconsider this damaging policy and cancel the planned broadcast of this misguided piece of propaganda.
John P. Martellaro
Registered Owner
Tax ID Number XXX-XX-XXXX
Note the e-mail address above, 'investor.relations@disneyonline.com'
Any other stockholders out there, fire away!