NEW YORK: With less than a week to go before shareholders elect Walt Disney’s board, the race for votes heated up as one institutional investor sided with chief executive officer Bob Iger and the company’s directors, while another backed hedge fund manager Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management.

       The New York City Retirement System, which owned US$291mil worth of Disney stock at the end of last month, said the entertainment giant should get more time to achieve the strategic transformation it is working on under Iger, rejecting the nominees from Trian and Blackwells Capital, another activist fund that also wants board seats.