Disney CEO Hints At Successor Amid Upbeat 4Q

RYAN NAKASHIMA

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Walt Disney Co. posted a surprise 18 percent increase in fourth-quarter earnings Thursday and announced an executive job switch that might point to an eventual successor to Chief Executive Robert Iger.

Iger, 58, said he was behind the decision to turn Chief Financial Officer Tom Staggs into the parks and resorts chairman, while making parks chairman Jay Rasulo the new CFO.

Staggs, 49, is well respected among Wall Street analysts and had been in his job for 11 years. Rasulo, 53, has pushed a theme park expansion into China and the construction of two new cruise ships, and has been in his current job since 2005.

Both men have been with Disney 20 years or more.

Iger referred to his own career when describing the benefit of giving his CFO experience in Disney's operational end and having Rasulo gain a better perspective on the entire company.

"Having benefited myself from being given new opportunities over the years, in some cases going to places and businesses I have not been in, I think I can particularly appreciate what a real opportunity this is for both of them," Iger told analysts. "I made both Tom and Jay offers that I felt they couldn't refuse."