Will anyone listen to new controller?
What won what where
The Mouse House has finished up its inquiry into backdating options at Pixar, which it now owns, and has concluded that, well, yeah, there was a bunch of stuff going on at the Steve Jobs' run animation studio before it was purchased by Disney, but that no one now connected with Disney did anything wrong, so can't we just all just get along and forget about it? Pleeese. OK, that's my translation of the press release, which came out this afternoon, right when the financial press was ready to sink its teeth into the story (hey financial press, anybody there? Oh, we forgot, there's a snow storm in NY right now). Anyway, the statement exonerates Jobs, who helped negotiate an employment contract with director John Lasseter that had stock option grants being priced at suspiciously low levels. Disney would offer no explanation of how the backdating occurred or who was responsible. Natch. And Jobs isn't talking. Natch. The Disney "probe" is separate from the Apple "probe" that found Jobs to be aware of some favorable grant dates at the computer company, but not to the point where he did anything wrong. Natch. Supposedly, the U.S. Attorney's office in SF is still sniffing around Pixar, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. WSJ Bloomberg