Can Amazon founder Jeff Bezos get a Bob Iger and return as CEO? One investor predicts this will happen in 2023

With Amazon’s stock price plummeting and difficult operational challenges ahead, could Jeff Bezos bring in a Bob Iger and return as the company’s CEO?

One investor predicts that this scenario will occur in 2023. A return of Bezos, who has handed the reins to longtime company vet-turned-executive chairman Andy Jassy, ​​in mid-2021 is one of 10 financial market predictions for this year by Michael Batnick, managing partner at Riholtz Wealth Management.

Batnick bases his prediction mainly on the company’s low share price. While 2022 was a brutal year for many tech stocks and the worst on the market since 2008, Amazon’s 50% drop was the biggest since 2000, the year the dot-com bubble burst. (In two market sessions so far in 2023, shares are up 1%.) The stock’s losses have wiped out a remarkable $840 billion in market value in just one year, along with about $100 billion in Bezos’ personal wealth.

“The company he spent his life building is struggling tremendously,” Batnick said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday. A CEO reversing a previous departure is “not without precedent,” the investor added. At Disney: “Bob Iger just did it. [Starbucks boss] Howard Schultz has drawn it several times.

Under Jassy, ​​Amazon’s financial decline gave way to turmoil during Covid, as inflation and a host of other economic factors conspired against it. When the company reported third-quarter results last October, it offered a surprisingly dim outlook for 2023, with total revenue expected to grow just 2% to 8% year-over-year.

“Amazon undoubtedly faces many headwinds,” admits Batnick. But he said the personal losses and difficult circumstances surrounding its founding would be enough to lure Bezos, who turns 59 next week, back to the corner office.

From a slowdown in advertising to rising shipping, labor and logistics costs, Amazon faces a tough operating environment. The company announced in an SEC filing Tuesday that it received an $8 billion loan for “general corporate purposes.” In a statement to specialist and financial media, a company spokesperson cited the “uncertain macroeconomic environment” as the reason for the loan.

After Covid caused an explosion in customer demand, Amazon decided to double its network of fulfillment centers only to see the wind blow from the worst of the pandemic. Plans for many new facilities had to be scaled back or put on hold, and the 1.3 million workers were hit by layoffs – a rare move for a tech giant amid a hiring boom when Jassy took over. While the company remains a giant in many industries — including entertainment, with Prime Video likely to peak in 2022 — overall momentum has largely stalled. Now is the time for a regroup instead of world building 2020.

Jassy is of course not a newcomer. The Harvard Business School graduate, who has been a company doctor for 25 years, most recently served as head of Amazon’s crown jewel division, Amazon Web Services. And yet the affable but intense music lover was not widely regarded as a potential heir to the throne. He said he had no plans to seek a higher position when Bezos approached him in 2021. keep a hand in Amazon’s day-to-day operations and there hasn’t been much public drama.

“I really didn’t think Jeff would ever do anything else,” Jassy said a few weeks ago in the CEO role. New York Times DealBook Conference. As he and Bezos discussed the transfer, “I spent most of the early part of this conversation wondering if he was sure he wanted to make a change.”