Disney scraps office plans amid DeSantis legal battle, reorganizes streaming library

let's turn to another corporate story

you're watching Disney scrapping plans

to build its nearly one billion dollar

office complex in Florida it announced

the news of its canceled plans on

Thursday citing quote new leadership and

changing business conditions wonder that

would that mean this comes as the

company is also opening few openly

feuding with the state's Governor Ron

DeSantis joining us now is Allie Canal

to discuss this more so this is really

kind of heating up right I sort of like

it sort of felt it had gotten quiet but

this this is not going away it's not

going away now Disney didn't

specifically say that Governor DeSantis

was the reason for these plans but you

can surmise that the ongoing feud had

something to do with it in an internal

memo obtained by Yahoo finance Josh

tomorrow who chairs the parks experience

and product division told employees that

the company would be stopping the

construction of this employee campus in

the Lake Nona region of Florida now

along with that construction stoppage

that that also means plans to relocate 2

000 california-based Disney employees

are no longer now it's a shame because a

lot of those employees did end up

leaving the company because they didn't

want to relocate now these plans are are

just going all over the place the

relocation plans they were first

announced in July 2021 under the

leadership of then CEO Bob chapek the

campus was supposed to open between 2022

2023 That Was Then delayed to 2026 and

now we got the news that it's just not

happening now the office of the governor

did eventually respond to me for comment

on this they they said that Disney

announced the possibility of a Lake Nona

campus nearly two years ago nothing ever

came of the project and the state was

unsure whether it would come to fruition

given the company's Financial Straits

failing market cap and declining stock

price it is unsurprising that they would

restructure their business operations

and cancel unsuccessful Ventures so

finding words there from the office of

the governor as they are in the midst a

feuding complaints and lawsuits and the

the drama continues yeah absolutely so

for investors trying to make sense of

multiple headlines that surround Disney

on a daily basis there's this there's

also the ESPN announcement too what is

the way to look at how Disney is kind of

moving these parts around whether it be

and where the employees are going to be

at or where certain assets that they've

already said are going to be kind of

their own Standalone internal entity are

now looking at being offered to the

public as well well I think from an

investor perspective these fights with

the governor that's not really moving

the stock too much we took a look at the

stock yesterday it was relatively flat

now today it's down on the day down

about two percent right now and you know

we've heard from analyst McGuire out

with a new note this morning downgrading

Disney shares from outperform to neutral

seeing those near-term uncertainties as

a risk for Disney's future now that

includes those linear networks to tear

creating you know you mentioned ESPN

there was a Wall Street Journal report

that there are talks about moving ESPN

fully over the top that's something

we've heard from Bob Iger we don't know

what the timeline could be on that but

that's another uh question mark for

investors so I think it's more of these

fundamental issues of the company if we

were to see this fight with the governor

materially impact the parks business or

Walt Disney World specifically in their

earnings I think that's something that

could move the stock but in terms of

this fight in particular that's one

element here that I think shareholders

are shrugging off at least for now

that's not to say down the line it

couldn't be you know more impactful to

Disney's bottom line yeah I'm just

saying now actually Macquarie has

downgraded the stock this morning so

maybe that is also helping push things

down that has to do with all of these

uncertainties that are ongoing it

doesn't seem to have to do with what's

going on in Florida right to your point

um but even still

um you know some other stuff there's

there's plenty forth to get for it to

contend with I guess is what I'm saying

even if you exempt all of the Florida

stuff here exactly and Disney look

they're in the midst of restructuring

their business they're in the midst of

trying to Pare down on their content as

well they're going to take a Content

impairment charge of 1.5 to 1.8 billion

as they look to scrap certain series and

specials from both Disney plus and Hulu

that's something they announced on their

latest earnings call and again this is

something that we're seeing across the

board as a lot of these media Giants are

really trying to Grapple with

profitability and be number one in the

streaming Wars while also making money

so it's that push and pull how do we

create value for both our shareholders

as well as our customers let's be real

can we talk about the real reason that

Disney is struggling right now it's

because the investors are thinking about

the fact that the Sixers are no longer

in the playoffs right now that's going

to impact the NBA viewership clearly

advertising dollars that's the real

reason minus two at least minus two I

know that was the last two viewers

dagger that was a dagger and like Josh

Schaefer our business supporter he's a

Celtics fan so she's got to go home I

know so I think there's a lot of

internal uh competition within Yahoo you

know as well as Disney you keep bringing

this up man I heard you well I think you

want the sympathy of the people I think

that's right we got the Eagles here's

the thing we're gonna have Kenny Smith

on later on today of course NBA former

NBA player and now analyst for NBA on

TNT I'm going to ask him why the Sixers

lost because I want some huge getting

MVP what's your sympathy you want some

answers accountability yeah okay I want

answers okay this is a serious stuff we

got to talk about you know okay well you

uh uh just heard you guys can talk about

that I'm going to tell people what what

we're going to talk about on air now