Disney Investment Firm Says Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck Were Elected to TXI Board

Last November, Walt Disney's nephew (Roy Disney) and the Disney family's investment firm (Shamrock Holdings) bought a 5.5 percent stake in Mockingbird Lane-based concrete maker Texas Industries, Inc., which, till just recently, wanted to burn tires down in Midlothian in order to fuel its kilns. (Shamrock now owns slightly more...

By Robert Wilonsky

October 23, 2009

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Last November, Walt Disney's nephew (Roy Disney) and the Disney family's investment firm (Shamrock Holdings) bought a 5.5 percent stake in Mockingbird Lane-based concrete maker Texas Industries, Inc., which, till just recently, wanted to burn tires down in Midlothian in order to fuel its kilns. (Shamrock now owns slightly more than 10 percent of the company.) Anyway, long story short: The Los Angeles Times is reporting this morning that yesterday, after TXI's annual shareholders meeting at the Crowne Plaza Market Center, Shamrock claimed it snagged three seats on the concrete-maker's board of directors.

Shamrock and TXI, which won't announce the voting results till next week, have been engaged in a wet-concrete wrestling match for some time, with the Disneys insisting that TXI chairman Robert Rogers -- an executive board member at the SMU Cox School of Business -- ain't doing such a hot job running the company, even in a down market. Hence the proxy fight that's been brewing since June with no resolution. (Said TXI CEO Mel Brekhus in an October 12 statement, "We are certainly disappointed with Shamrock's lack of interest in a cooperative agreement.") Stanley Gold, Shamrock's president and CEO, tells The Times, "This is the largest repudiation of a company's leadership that I've seen. It's a wake-up call to Texas Industries and Mr. Rogers that they better get their act together."

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