Eisner Needs a Little Ugly Dust to Save the Kingdom

It appears Disney chief Michael Eisner is not going to give up without a fight. Comcast has offered $26 per share for Disney, but if Eisner accepts the bid, he will surely be canned after 20 years at the helm. So instead, he has hired Goldman, Sachs -- for $50 million or so -- to figure out how to get out of this mess. Even as I write, scores of investment bankers are huddling in conference rooms, being fed Chinese food intravenously until they come up with a way out.

But I think I can help him. Here is what I would tell him for the price of this newspaper. In Wall Street-speak, Eisner should invoke the Nancy Reagan defense and then the Pac Man defense in order to buy time to "get ugly" and "join the club."

The Nancy Reagan defense is "Just say no," or, as Timothy Leary corrected her, "Just say no, thank you."

Disney has started this defense by turning a cold shoulder to Comcast. It should have let me write the press release: "We are turning down Comcast's offer because, uh, don't they just string wires on telephone poles? Who wants to own that? Their stock has been a dog for the last five years. We don't want their stinking piece of paper."

Of course, that could leave the board of Disney open to shareholder lawsuits for not honoring its fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value. Yeah, like it's going to start now?

More fun would be the Pac Man defense: Don't run away -- run over the fruit and become the aggressors. Announce that Disney would like to make a bid for all of Comcast. That would certainly turn things around. But to really annoy Comcast, do a take-under. Comcast's stock closed Thursday at $30.25. Send a message to Wall Street and tell them what you think it's really worth. Bid $27. That'll show them.

Now comes the hard part: Get ugly. You've got to make Disney so ugly, so hideous and disgusting that no one would ever want to own it. Start buying stupid stuff, like the Henson Co. (Oh, Disney already bought some Muppets?) Also start selling really important things. Sell the ABC television network and stations to Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp. He's always wanted it anyway.

Go into debt up to your eyeballs and buy back your stock. Make your balance sheet so putrid that no one would want to try to fix it. Forget about someone else bidding for Disney. Didn't Disney's "Shrek" show us that white knights don't kiss ugly princesses? Oops, that was DreamWorks.