The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company () is an American company created in 1923 by Walt Disney. It is today one of the greatest groups of entertainment of the world, present in the industry of the media (newspapers, radios, television, Internet), of the cinema (traditional and animation with their derivative products), and in the industry of tourism and the leisures through its spectacles, its amusement parks, its hotels and its boats of cruising.

The company is declared in the State of the Delaware, like many american companies, and its head office is in California with Burbank (See Head office of Disney).

History of the company

See also: Historical of Walt Disney Company

The company was founded the October 16th 1923 by Walt and Roy Disney, recently installed in California in order to produce the series Alice Comedies. With the success of this series, the Disney Brothers Studios move in 1926 in new studios on Hyperion Avenue. In 1928, the studio is confronted with a crisis with its last character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit . Walt is obliged to conceive, with the assistance of Ub Iwerks, a new character, Mickey Mouse. In order to mark the blow, it synchronizes animation with sound, almost first world. The problems are not solved immediately but force Walt Disney to develop a certain independence with respect to the companies of Hollywood.

Thanks to the success of this character, the company gains enough money and renames Walt Disney Productions in 1929. Since 1932, it launches out in a new project: the use of the color. Only United Artists agrees to distribute the new series, Silly Symphonies . Walt manages to obtain a two years exclusiveness on the process Technicolor, Of the trees and the flowers leaves since 1933.

In 1934, Walt repeats and wishes to produce a feature-length film of animation. Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs leaves fine 1937 then.

In 1935, Walt Disney is approached by a young salesman undertaking, Kay Kamen. Kamen proposes a contract ensuring the Disney company to him at least 50,000 $ of incomes without anything to per annum spend in the only condition that Kamen preserves half of the profits. Kamen becomes the agent managing the derivative products of the Disney studios. Quickly it pours at Disney 2,5 million $ per annum, empochant the same amount.

In 1939, the Disney company launched in a new project of Walt, creates the process Fantasound, precursor of the Dolby in order to have the best returned sound for the film " symphonique" Fantasia. The studios move in thanks to the success of White-Snow in a new studio with Burbank. The Second world war modifies the line of business, private abroad resources coming from its activities, which since years 1930 represent a big part of its incomes. The new studios are even requisitioned by the army.

After the end of the conflict, the company takes again its activities and following death in 1949 of Kay Kamen, it creates a subsidiary company for the management of the derivative products, Walt Disney Enterprises as Walt Disney Publications which gathers inter alia the two subsidiary companies for the musical rights (Walt Disney Music Company in 1949 and Wonderland Music Company in 1951). The firm uses capital blocked in England to completely produce its first films in catch of real sight. First the Island with the treasure left in 1950 is . Successes multiply and the Disney company becomes an important group.

In 1952, Walt Disney founds with its own sums of money a new business for a new activity, WED Enterprises which launches out in the design of the amusement park Disneyland. In 1953, the company increases its independence with the creation of Buena Vista Distribution, a subsidiary company of distribution for its productions.

In 1954, in order to obtain money for the park Disneyland, Walt Disney accepts the offer of ABC to produce and present an emission of Télévision. The company launches out then in these new media. In 1955, the Disneyland park opens its doors and gives the bases of the concept of Parc to topics.

The company continues its productions in television, animation and the cinema and decides in 1964 to increase division park with topics with the land acquisition in Florida. Disney launches the project of Walt Disney World.

With died on Walt Disney in 1966, his/her Roy older brother decides to continue the work of Walt. He inaugurates the complex floridien in 1971 but dies just afterwards. The company is found then without real decision maker.

From the years 1980, the company finds a new breath. Division amusement park inaugurates a second park in Florida, EPCOT inspired by a futuristic vision of Walt Disney as well as the park Tokyo Disneyland with the Japan in 1983. Division cinema is not remains and leaves it in 1982 the film Tron, using for the first time of the synthesized images generated by the Informatique then creates the subsidiary company Walt Disney Television in 1983 like Disney Channel.

After having undergone an attempt of tender offer and sale in batches, the company accepts in 1984 the entry of financial groups in its capital. Michael Eisner is named chairman and Frank Wells becomes the finance manager. The same year sees the birth of the subsidiary company Touchstone Pictures for more adult films. The February 6th 1986.

For a more complete list of the possessions of Walt Disney Company, thank you to see this list.

Studios and entertainment

The division of the studios and entertainment Walt Disney Studios Entertainment (ex Buena Vista Entertainment ) is composed of various companies of cinema, music and theater distributed as follows:

Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group
: They are the movie studios with Walt Disney Pictures (for the feature-length films), Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures and Miramax which includes/understands division Dimension Films. Walt Disney Pictures is subdivided in Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios.
: The group thus has an important film catalog whose distribution is ensured by Buena Vista Entertainment.
Disney Music Group
: Division " musique" includes/understands the labels Walt Disney Records, Mammoth Records, Lyric Street Records and Hollywood Records.
Buena Vista Theatrical Group
: Division " theater and spectacles" includes/understands Walt Disney Theatrical Productions which produces musical comedies mainly with Broadway and Walt Disney Creative Entertainment which manages the spectacles of the Disney parks but which also depends on another subsidiary company Walt Disney Imagineering.
Buena Vista Publishing Group
: This division gathers the interests of Disney in the edition of the books. However Disney Publishing Worldwide is attached to Disney Consumer Products.
the diffusion of the productions is ensured through Buena Vista Home Entertainment and of Buena Vista International. Thus the sales of DVD of Disney and other studios are associated with this division and not with that of the consumables.
Disney Live Family Entertainment with which is associated the production with

Disney one Ice
Disney Live

Media and networks

The Walt Disney Company gathered in this division all that is related on the communication and the media.

Disney amalgamated the February 6th 2007 the various entities of promotion and of publicity in the field of the media in only one group, the Disney Media Advertizing Sales and Marketing Group , that gathers the Télévision, Internet, the radio and the press.

Television and the radio

Walt Disney Company gathered in 2004 its many subsidiary companies of television, cable networks and radio in an important division, named Disney-ABC Television Group . The Disney-ABC Group Television manages the production, the diffusion and the incomes of the television programs and radio of the various subsidiary companies of Disney

Disney-ABC Cables Network Group which develops and manages the subscriptions of the cable networks of the various subsidiary companies of Disney
the group ABC Television Network

225 stations in the United States of American Broadcasting Company
ABC News which is the production company of informative contents for television, the radio and Internet
ABC Kids which manages the programs youths of ABC
ABC Daytime which manages the programmings of the day.
ABC Entertainment
ABC Family

: Disney also diversified its offer with international with for example ABC1 a general channel launched in 2004 in England.
the syndication and televised production.

Walt Disney Television Animation production of Disney cartoons for television.
International Walt Disney Television
Disney-ABC Domestic Television (ex Buena Vista Television , for the USA)
Buena Vista International Television (programs diffused on 1300 chains of 240 countries)
ABC Television Studio (ex Touchstone Television )
Walt Disney Television (also named Disney Channel Worldwide ) including/understanding Disney Channel (25 chains), Toon Disney (9 chains), Playhouse Disney (8 chains), Disney Cinemagic, Jetix, Hungama
25% of GMTV, producer emissions for ITV.
the network Radio Disney, associated with this group since July 2006

held chains in a more or less important way:

SOAPnet, Lifetime, A&E

Disney resold at the end of November 2006 with Comcast its shares in E! Entertainment.

The divison network also includes/understands:

Citadel Communications : Since 2006 the subsidiary company ABC Radio operator was " vendue" with Citadel Communications, a subsidiary company with 57% of Disney which is attached to division Télévision and Radio
ESPN , television network devoted to the sports.

The edition

The literary subsidiary company includes/understands two parts:

the publisher of Disney Hyperion books.
Disney Publishing Worldwide which is attached to the consumables.

Internet and Telephony

One also finds in division media and network the Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG), the division Internet of Disney, resulting from Infoseek, and all his subsidiary companies of which the sites oscar.com and nba.com . This division was during the years 1999 to 2003 a branch with share of Walt Disney Company, the fifth division.

It also henceforth includes/understands the products of telephony of which Disney Mobile and Mobile ESPN.

Parks with topics

the company Walt Disney Parks and Resorts , which manages the parks with topics, gathers with the the United States the complexes of parks and hotels of Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort as well as ESPN Zone.

Disney has also a third of the capital of Disneyland Resort Paris and about half of HongKong Disneyland Resort which opened in September 2005.
the complex of parks and hotels of Tokyo Disney Resort is under frankness near OLC Group which repurchased in 2002 Disney Store Japan.

This division also includes/understands:

Disney Cruise Line, a company of cruising
Disney Vacation Club, a company of division of apartment/villa
Walt Disney Imagineering, a company which manages the creation of the parks and places of leisures.

Since the sale by Disney of the Disney Store with The Children Places (company of sale of children's wears), the shop Disney Store of the Fifth Avenue in New York east passed under the control of the division of the parks.
In more Disney proposes since the beginning of the Années 1990 a programme of marriage in the middle of the parks with topics, Disney' S Fairy Tale Weddings.
Disney recently launched to the United States a service of organized voyages.

Consumables

This division called Disney Consumer Products gathers the rights on the derivative products as well as the Disney shop in renamed line Disney Direct associated with the VPC, Disney Catalog. The products are as well clothing as computer material while passing by the toys, the books (Disney Publishing Worldwide) or the video games (Disney Interactive).
But the supports of media (DVD, CD and others) are associated with division Buena Vista Entertainment .
the company Disney Entreprises , often seen in the “copyrights” (property rights) is a branch of this division: the majority of the productions of Disney is protected at the same time by the artistic copyright and the intellectual property (productions being also deposited as a trade Marks). The office of the trade marks and patents American count more than 524 trade marks for the " term; Disney" .
the benefit of “Disney Store” of the the United States are placed in this division since their sales with The Children Place in 2004. The Disney Store in Europe always form part of Disney which announced fine June 2005 its intention more to sell them for lack of candidates with their repurchase.

Other interests

Disney has since the end of the Années 1970 several airliners (ten) which it currently rents with Delta Airlines. The bankruptcy of the announced latter in September 2005, will cost indirectly nearly 100 million dollars at Disney. This type of investment was current in the years 1970 to 1980. Disney indicated in the notes of the report/ratio of the January 9th 2005 that its investment in the hiring of plane rises at January 1st, 2005 to 157 million $ distributed with height of 103 million at Delta Airlines and of 54 million at Fedex
Walt Disney Company has its own banking institutions of the type Coopérative:

Partners Federal Credit Union for Disneyland Arises in California.
Federal Vista Credit Union for the remainder of the United States.

It has also a company of Capital risk named Steamboat Ventures.

Company analyzes

Walt Disney Company is at present the only movie studio " indépendant" since the other groups depend on more or less varied conglomerates (Sony or General Electric). It is also the only one not to have changed owner apart from the arrival in 1984 of Michael Eisner and financial groups. Since the years 1980 and especially thanks to Michael Eisner the company became a group of media in the broad sense. The policy of charismatic Michael Eisner was strongly appreciated by the financial circle until the financial problems of Euro Disney SCA and those of ABC.

From 2001 the results of the company became fragile and required the resale of many subsidiary companies of the group of which emblematic the Disney Store (except in Europe) or companies of sports. These results are assigned by the deficits of Euro Disney SCA and the dependence of ABC to successes of its emissions. Moreover, the crisis of the September 11th, 2001 reduced the frequentation of the parks Disney who usually generates a third of the incomes of the company. On the other hand, the mark ESPN produces a good part of the sales turnover and benefit of division media and networks often making up the deficit of ABC.

These difficulties lead to the dismissal of the chairman Eisner in June 2004 at the time of the annual convention of the shareholders.

Since the departure of Michael Eisner the company wants to be undertaking more: it launched out in mobile telephony as a operator of virtual mobile network and develops actively in China and India. The success of the Pirate films of the Caribbean and those of the series diffused on ABC (Lost, Grey' S Anatomy) made it possible to partly rectify the company which can consequently concentrate on the problems of the amusement parks.

The license of group: new strategy launched in 2002

The year 2007 confirms with the exit of Spectrobes, the new strategy of the Disney company engaged in 2002: the creation of license of group. This principle is rather simple, a branch of the group launches a product which if it functions well will be re-used by the other branches (or divisions) to create many derivative products.

Before 2002, this system was especially confined in only one direction, of the creative division (Studios and entertainment of which traditionally the cinema) towards the parks with topics and the consumables.

In 2003, with the exit of the Pirate films of the Caribbean 1: The curse of Black Pearl and the haunted Manor and the 999 phantoms which are initially attractions of the Disney parks, Disney launches out for the first time in a different direction.

In 2006 with High School Musical, it is division the television which makes benefit from its success division cinema (near) but also the parks with topics (several parades in the parks) and like always the consumables. Spectrobes would mark for the first time an influence of the branch video game, depend on division " products of consommation" on other divisions of the Disney company, with the possible exit of books (data base and mangas because of the Japanese aspect of the play), of televised series and traditional clothing, toys, etc

India new laboratory of the group

The first " laboratoires" group were the California with since 1987, the launching of many concepts of which the Disney Store (1987), the Mighty Ducks d' Anaheim (1993), the Club Disney (1997) and Walt Disney World Resort with Disney Vacation Club (1991), World off Disney (1998), DisneyQuest (1999).
End 2000, the legislation in India was softened mainly with regard to the companies which can henceforth create joint-ventures in the country. Since 2002, the guarantees on the intellectual property are reinforced and since 2004, the foreign companies can create franknesses. Disney benefitted from these opportunities to invest massively in this country.

the first actions are the creation of several chains attached to Walt Disney Television or ABC as of December 2004.
Le November 25th, 2006, Disney buys an Indian television channel for youth: Hungama TV.
division " products of consommation" , Disney Consumer Products (DCP) continued the offensive

by introducing on June 3rd, 2006 a new range of products, clothing in Jeans for the family, Disney Jeans, through the opening of 20 shops specialized in Inde.
In March 2007, DCP opened its first shop Disney Artist in India. This new concept is associated with the entity Disney Stationery, specialized in the derivative products related to the paper mill.
while launching in July 2007, of the products not laid off by partners with a range of care of the person (shampoo and freezing shower initially, other products then)
: The company thus changes method, instead of providing a license to large frabricant like Unilever or Procter & Gamble and thus touching only royalties, Disney launches out in the direct porduction in optics to gain the most important shares of returned. In 2006, the figures for the division of the consumables were of 4 billion $ of royalties for sales estimated at more than 26 billion $.

For the moment, no park with topics is considered, but after that of Shanghai planned for 2013, India seems to have to be an obliged stage.

Implication in architecture

Since the Years 1930, Walt Disney and its teams are influenced by architecture. But it is especially at the beginning of the Années 1940 with the studios of Burbank that the company enters the world of architecture. The new studio was thought like a campus and not like a factory. That made of it an example for other companies.
In 1955 with Disneyland Walt Disney and its Imagineers creates a new form of architecture which reminds the stories anchored in the memory collective.
Then in 1964-65 with the International exhibition of New York and especially in 1982 with EPCOT, appears the imposing architecture of the large houses of exposures dedicated to technology. EPCOT also proposes houses representing the cultures of different pays.
Apart from the parks, Disney made build various buildings (offices and hotels) by regularly calling upon cabinets of famous architects. Their works are often quoted like reference. Thus the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Disney Village in Paris designed by Frank Gehry, côtoient the hotels drawn by Robert AM Stern or Michael Graves.

Other activities of the company

This company is in the beginning of what is called with the the United States, the Mickey Act, a prolongation of the duration of the royalties in order to prevent that the mouse Mickey (Mickey Mouse) then old of soon 75 years does not return in the public domain and that Disney does not lose the rights of them. What is in contradiction with the fact that most of works of the Disney studios used, and often deformed, of the tales or novels already existing and passed in the public domain.

Disney is implied in art through CalArts, the Californian university that Walt Disney had helped to found in 1961.

In 1984, on the initiative of Michael Eisner, Disney bought via its subsidiary company Walt Disney World Company the collection of African art of Paul Tishman, property developer of New York. This last mainly built the field of Walt Disney World Resort. The October 3rd 2005 Walt Disney Company made gift of 525 (first) objects with the National museum of African art of Smithsonian Institute. The remainder of the 8.500 objects, which compose the collection Walt Disney-Tishman, will be delivered before February 2007.

Shareholders of Disney

Walt Disney Company is mainly held by:

of the institutions (percentage at March 31st, 2007)

FMR Corporation (FIDELITY MANAGEMENT & RESEARCH) (4,26%)
State Street Corporation (3,49%)
Barclays Total Investors the U.K. Holdings Ltd (3,16%)
Vanguard Group (2,78%)
Legg Mason Inc (2,60%)
Southeastern Asset Management Inc. (2,53%)
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co (2,13%)
Jennison Associates LLC (1,79%)
Wellington Management Company (1,73%)
AXA (1,71%)

of the American pension funds

Public California Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS)
New York State Common Retirement Fund
American Federation off State, Municipal County and Employees Pension Funds (AFSCME)
Illinois State Board off Investment

of the funds of investments of which

Waddell & Reed, Inc (6%)
Wells Fargo Advantage Funds (6%)

One can as note as since January 2006 Steve Jobs (founder and chairman of Apple, Inc.) has 3,7 billion dollars in actions (more than 2%), following the different repurchase of sound company, Pixar, and becomes thus the first individual shareholder. The second individual shareholder is Michael Eisner which has 14 million actions (1,7%).

The Kingdom Holding Company, the holding of the Prince Alwaleed, has since 2000 a participation evaluated then in 50 million $.

Direction of Walt Disney Company

Current management

current Head office

President of the directory: George J. Mitchell
Chairman and managing director: Robert Iger
President Directeur:
Financial person in charge: Thomas O. Staggs
Assistant of Robert Iger: Peter E. Murphy

Responsible current for the subsidiary companies

International Walt Disney: Andy Bird
Walt Disney Parks and Springs: Jay Rasulo
Walt Disney Studios: Richard Cook
Buena Vista Music Group: Bob Cavallo
Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group: Nina Jacobson
ESPN: George W. Bodenheimer
To consume Products: Andrew P. Mooney
Walt Disney Feature Animation: David Stainton
Disney-ABC Group Television: Anne Sweene
Walt Disney Imagineering: Marty Sklar

History of the directors

PDGs from Disney

1923-1966: Walt Disney
1966-1971: Roy Oliver Disney
1971-1980: Gift Tatum
1980-1983: E. Cardoon Walker
1983-1984: Raymond Watson
1984-2004: Michael Eisner
starting from the 1^er October 2005: Robert Iger

Presidents of the directory of Disney (not executives)

1923-1966: Walt Disney
1923-1971: Roy Oliver Disney
1971-1977: Gift Tatum
1977-1983: E. Cardoon Walker
1983-1984: Raymond Watson
1984-2004: Michael Eisner
2004-2006: George J. Mitchell
as from 2007: John E. Pepper Jr.

Presidents executive directors of Disney

1945-1966: Roy Oliver Disney
1966-1971: Gift Tatum
1971-1977: E. Cardoon Walker
1977-1984: Ronald William Miller
1984-1994: Frank Wells
1994-1995: Michael Eisner
1995-1997: Michael Ovitz
2000 at our days: Robert Iger

See too

the Disney company uses a jargon of company which is sometimes used in these pages: to see the Jargon of Walt Disney Company in the parks with topics.
Disney emits a baptized currency Disney Dollar

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