Bob Iger Shares Tips on Negotiating Big Deals for MasterClass

(Bloomberg) -- Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger had a tough decision to make last year after Comcast Corp. offered a whopping $65 billion counter bid for 21st Century Fox Inc.’s entertainment assets.

Comcast’s offer was already 25% more than Disney’s. Advisers to Iger suggested he come back with a smaller increase. Instead, the executive went big with a $71 billion knockout bid.

“I thought if we went up in small increments, that it would be easy for them to go up in small increments as well,” Iger, 68, recalled in an online video released Thursday. “We’d face the potential of a continuing battle upward, which would not only take time, but could ultimately cost us more money.”

Iger shared his negotiating tips on a learning site called MasterClass that includes dozens of other celebrities sharing their secrets to success. The site, which includes Natalie Portman on acting and Annie Leibovitz teaching photography, costs $15 per month or $180 for an annual pass.

In Iger’s class, he discusses some of his other negotiating strategies. The executive, who has led Disney for 14 years, said he prefers to lay everything he wants on the table at the start, realizing he won’t get everything, but believing the technique speeds the process.

He said the approach worked with Steve Jobs, who sold his Pixar animation studio to Disney for $7.4 billion shortly after Iger took over as CEO.

“I told Steve from the beginning, ‘Look this is something that the Walt Disney Co. really needed to do,’” Iger said. “I think he reacted to that in a very positive way, because there was a spirit of candor across the negotiating table that he truly appreciated. He realized there wasn’t a game being played.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Linus Chua, Virginia Van Natta

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