Disney is the largest entertainment company in the world with an almost uncountable number of subsidiaries. While almost all of us know it was founded by Roy O. Disney and Walt Disney, who owns the company now?
Walt Disney is not owned by one single person as it is a publicly-traded company. The largest shareholder in the company is Vanguard Group Inc. who owns 137.8 million shares. Other large company shareholders are BlackRock Inc. and State Street Corp. The individuals with the highest shares are Bob Iger, Christine M. McCarthy, and Alan N. Braverman.
Scroll down to read more about the biggest Disney shareholders, the long list of Disney subsidiaries, and the Disney heirs.
Disney’s Top Shareholders
As mentioned above, Vanguard Group Inc. is Disney’s largest shareholder and owns around 137.8 million shares. That is roughly 7.6% of the company.
What exactly is Vanguard Group though?
Vanguard is an investment management company that focuses mostly on long-term investing with mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). They manage over $6 trillion in client investments.
Not long ago there was a different company that held the largest number of shares in Disney. That was the Laurene Powell Jobs Trust.
In 2011, Laurene Powell had inherited 138 million shares of Disney from her late husband Steve Jobs. Jobs had sold his company, Pixar, to Disney in 2006 for $7.4 billion and part of that deal included shares in the entertainment giant.
However, in 2017 Powell announced that she had reduced their shares in the company to 4%.
As listed above, there are also two other companies that have large stakes in Disney. BlackRock Inc. and State Street Corp. both do roughly the same thing as Vanguard.
BlackRock owns 114.6 million shares while State Street owns 75 million.
As for individuals, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the former President and CEO and current Chairman and Executive Chairman has a large stake. Bob Iger is the individual with the most shares in Disney at over 1,150,000.
Christine M. McCarthy owns over 141,000 shares. McCarthy is the Senior Executive Vice President and CFO of The Walt Disney Company.
Finally, the third individual with the most shares in Disney is Alan N. Braverman with almost 99,000 shares. He is the Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Disney.
You can watch the below video from How It Happened that highlights how The Walt Disney Company became so successful.
Disney’s Subsidiaries
With so many shareholders and a reputation as the biggest entertainment company in America, it’s no surprise that Disney owns a lot of different companies. One, as we said above, is Pixar.
What are some of the others though?
Well first of all there are all of there is Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products, which includes the Disney parks and resorts, cruises, publishing, games, and retail. Under this branch there over 100 different subsidiaries, one is National Geographic.
Under Disney’s Media and Entertainment Distribution division there are again over 100 different subsidiaries that fall under advertising, motion pictures, music groups, direct to consumer services, and digital products. This is where Disney+ is and news outlets that Disney owns like Fox, ESPN, and ABC.
It’s within the content groups, however, that the most famous acquisitions sit. Disney has acquired Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, FX Networks, and 50% of A&E Networks.
That’s a vast number of companies that sit under Disney’s umbrella.
Disney’s Heirs
While the company is now public and most of its fortune is within the pockets of shareholders, there are actually some heirs to the Disney fortune. Roy O. Disney’s only son, Roy E. Disney, had four children.
These four children are Timothy Disney, Roy Patrick Disney, Abigail Disney, and Susan Disney. They were the heirs to the trust left by Roy O. and appear to all be on good terms.
Abigail Disney has even been extremely vocal about pay inequality and slammed Bob Iger for his elitism.
Some of Walt Disney’s other grandchildren have been in a battle over their inheritance. Walt had two daughters, Diane who was his biological daughter, and Sharon whom he adopted at birth.
It was Sharon’s children who were left with an inheritance to be doled out to them on their birthdays at the ages of 35, 40, and 45, based on the trustees’ decision that they were financially mature.
The withholding of funds has led to a family feud that went to court.