Disney board strikes back at family

THE Walt Disney board has rallied behind under-fire chairman and chief executive Michael Eisner, hailing his leadership of the company and countering criticisms levelled at him from members of the firm's founding Disney family.

The board has written to investors and taken out full-page advertisements crowing about recent achievements. The campaign is the board's most aggressive action since Roy Disney, nephew of founder Walt Disney, and his associate Stanley Gold began their concerted attacks on Eisner's leadership last year. It appears to be a tacit admission that the criticisms are hitting home.

'You should be disturbed by this attack, which comes at a time when your company is achieving very positive results,' the board told its shareholders.

It called Eisner's performance 'impressive' and pointed out that the group's shares rose 43% last year.

The fight is becoming increasingly personal, with the company refusing to allow Roy's daughter Abigail to attend a shareholders' meeting which they said was only for institutions, not private shareholders. Critics said the move was a further attempt to freeze out members of the founding family.

Roy retorted that the company's stock had underperformed the S&P 500 index since 1997 and that, if it reaches its 2004 goals, it will be roughly where it was six years ago.