The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So I would say that — and I obviously have to — I can’t emphasize enough the time that we spent and the effort that we spent on managing costs. We’ve done a tremendous job in a very, very short period of time of exceeding the cost reductions that we said we were going to achieve and that’s obviously a major step in the direction of improving our margins. Pricing, as we’ve talked about earlier on this call and in our comments, is another way to do that. Password sharing is another way to do that. Getting the technology in place to grow engagement, the advertising side of this business is another. So I’m reasonably optimistic and hopeful that we will be improving our margins in this business significantly over the next few years. But I’m not going to make any further predictions in that except — the good news is that we know how much work we have to do.

We know the work that we have to do as well.

Kevin Lansberry: And Steven, I’ll answer the question with respect to Hulu put. So I’ll remind everyone that the floor to that put is about $9.2 billion. We’re very comfortable with our current liquidity position. We’ve got about $11.5 billion of cash on our balance sheet, got about $10.5 billion worth of revolving credit facilities and commercial paper. And so we — and we’re going to have plenty of future cash flow to help fund all of this going forward. I would also like to note that from a balance sheet perspective, we’ve got a strong single A credit rating that reflects the strength that we see in our balance sheet. We made significant progress recently, deleveraging coming out of the pandemic. We’re prioritizing free cash flow as a company.

And we’re being really disciplined and smart about how we go about allocating capital across the company. And last but not least, as I noted in my prepared remarks, we hope to still be in a position – or we plan to still be in a position at the end of this year to recommend to the Board of Directors that we put a modest dividend out.

Alexia Quadrani: Next question, please.

Operator: Our next question comes from Kannan Venkateshwar from Barclays. Please go ahead with your question.

Kannan Venkateshwar: Thank you. So Bob, I mean, on the ESPN side, you’ve spoken about the need for partners. Could you talk a little bit about the priorities when you look at partners? Is it more in the form of direct capital infusion or maybe some kind of reach on the distribution side when it comes to streaming? What are the objectives you’re really solving for? And then, Kevin, maybe as a follow-up to the guidance, just triangulating between some of the segment guidance that you just gave and trends in the first three quarters. The full year high-single digit guide in the operation is obviously great. But it will need more acceleration in Q4 than we’ve seen in the first three quarters of OI. So if you could just talk through what the drivers of that acceleration, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Robert Iger: Kannan, we’re not necessarily looking for cash infusion when it comes to partners. We’re looking for partners that are going to help ESPN successfully transition to a DTC model. And that, as I’ve said, can come in the form of either content or distribution and marketing support or both.

Alexia Quadrani: And Kannan, can you repeat your second question, please?

Kannan Venkateshwar: So in terms of the guidance for high-single digit OI growth, just triangulating between the trends in the first three quarters and some of the segment guidance in the quarter, it seems to imply growth in the fourth quarter will be higher for OI. And so I just wanted to understand what the drivers of that acceleration.