The costliest shareholder fight goes to Disney board

Disney, Trian Fund, Blackwells may spend over 70 million before 3 April shareholder vote

- Lauren Thomas

A boardroom brawl at Walt Disney is expected to be the most expensive shareholder fight ever, and a chance for everyday investors to have a big impact.

Two activist hedge funds-Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management and the smaller Blackwells Capital-are separately going toe-to-toe with Disney to gain spots on its board and challenge the strategy of Chief Executive Bob Iger.

All in, the three parties could spend north of $70 million ahead of an April 3 shareholder vote. They are already shelling out for slick marketing materials, social-media blitzes and the services of proxy solicitors-akin to campaign strategists who wrangle shareholder support for their clients' board candidates.

One reason for the high price: the millions of individual investors who own an outsize portion of Disney's roughly 1.8 billion shares. They control over a third of Disney's stockmore than is typical for a public company. Institutional investors such as BlackRock and Vanguard hold the rest, and their votes carry heft, too.

Getting the word out to such a widespread shareholder base is costly.

The costs could be much lower if the activists don't take their fights to a vote, either by settling with Disney or backing away. Trian called off its first proxy attempt at Disney last year.