Witness Touts Deals Proposed by Ovitz

Deals Michael Ovitz attempted to put together during his brief tenure as president of Walt Disney Co. would “have paid his salary tenfold” if the company had pursued them, an expert hired by Ovitz said Wednesday.

California trial lawyer Larry R. Feldman testified in a lawsuit brought by shareholders who claim Disney should have fired Ovitz for alleged deception and ethical breaches in his role as an executive.

Feldman echoed Ovitz’s portrayal of himself as a thwarted dealmaker whose push to bolster Disney’s presence in music, publishing and technology was blocked by Chief Executive Michael Eisner.

“Eisner really was the guy who had to greenlight everything,” Feldman said.

Eisner hired Ovitz, a longtime friend, in 1995 and fired him a little more than a year later with a severance package that plaintiffs’ lawyers value at more than $140 million. The shareholder suit seeks to recover some of that money for the company.

“He wasn’t there very long,” Feldman said, referring to Ovitz. “This was a man that had big visions. He was not a meat-and-potatoes kind of person. Those things have to be supported.”

The attorney cited Ovitz’s advocacy of a potential deal to buy Putnam Publishing for about $300 million and said that company was now worth more than $1 billion.

Additionally, Feldman pointed to Ovitz’s brokering of a tentative settlement of a dispute between Disney and former studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg, founder of DreamWorks SKG.

Instead of the $85 million to $90 million that Ovitz negotiated, Disney wound up paying Katzenberg more than $250 million, testimony in the Georgetown, Del., trial indicated.

Attorneys for shareholders say there is a lack of documentary evidence that Ovitz made progress on the Putnam, Katzenberg and other deals.

Feldman also said months of testimony in the Delaware court had turned up no proof that the former Disney president was dishonest or unethical, in spite of criticisms of his performance by Eisner.

Memos from Eisner calling Ovitz a “psychopath” and a liar are cited in shareholder papers characterizing the former Hollywood power broker as a nonperforming troublemaker at Burbank-based Disney.