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Time Warner To Spin Off AOL
Hugh Pickens writes "Time Warner is inching closer to untangling one of the worst mergers in American corporate history that began with the merger of Time Warner with America Online, a deal that has resulted in the evaporation of more than $100 billion of shareholder value. "Although the company's board of directors has not made any decision, the company currently anticipates that it would initiate a process to spin off one or more parts of the businesses of AOL to Time Warner's stockholders, in one or a series of transactions," Time Warner said in the filing. Tech industry analysts have speculated for years that Time Warner would spin off AOL; the two companies merged in 2001 with the idea that AOL's strengths as a new media company could benefit an old media company like Time Warner, and vice versa. But few synergies ever arose from the marriage and even AOL founder Steve Case, who is no longer with the company, has said that he believes the two companies should be separated."
Please don't say "synergies." It makes me cry a little.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Will I still get my AOL discs in the mail? I almost have enough to make a solar parabolic amplifier death ray.
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
I don't believe that for one moment. The writing was on the wall for AOL anyways, and for much of Time Warner as well. Had they not merged, they still would have lost about the same amount between them. To think otherwise - to agree with the above quote - is to somehow believe that AOL would still be what it was in 1996, when they were providing dialup for millions, which is just silly.
Do you mean to tell me that you have the naivete to believe that the core of AOL wasn't an outdated business model when this merger happened? Face it. Turner didn't have a clue what he was doing, and he bought a timed bomb for which there was no way to disarm the fuze.
Ah, the joys of market bubbles. Seriously, this was primarily a Time Warner stumble. If I remember correctly, AOL was worth more than Time Warner at the time of the merger. Hence, "AOL Time Warner." In retrospect, that was ludicrous. It would have made as much sense for Time Warner to have changed it's name to "Time Warner.com" or something idiotic like that. It seemed that the most mundane business models, or no business models at all, were getting VC money because "it uses the internet." This, and the current recession, both serve to illustrate that business leaders often behave stupidly and are susceptible to hype.
Steve Case saved shareholder value for his AOL shareholders, the only people to whom he owed any duty. If, I don't know, Microsoft and GM were to merge, smart money would bet on Microsoft shareholders losing a LOT of money, but I would suspect GM's shareholders would be pretty happy with the deal. It all depends on how you define the loser.
Make love, not reality television.
1 Time Warner AOL merger of negative shareholder value is worth 14.3 Carly Fiorinas.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
AOL Acquires Time Warner in Largest Ever Expenditure of Pretend Internet Money
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
I reember when broadband service started to eat away at dial-up. AOL was offering AOL Broadband. It was just the AOL face over your existing, always connected connection. Internet Explorer brought to you by AOL, with AOL as the home page, and the crappy AOL email service. People bought into that for a while, then realized that if they just clicked on the blue E, they had internet, without some sort of AOL overlay.
A friend of mine still uses AOL dial-up at I think $24.99 a month, when he can use his phone company for broadband for less then $20, because he's used AOL for the last 10 years and that's all he knows. I downloaded firefox last time I was over there and blew his mind by minimizing his AOL window crap and pulling that up. He thought that was neat, but it didn't look like AOL so he had no idea how to navigate to a different web site, using a real web browser.
AOL, your 15 minutes are over, please turn the lights out when you leave, maybe Time Warner will wither away in the darkness of an antiquated media format.
cost too mutch
it suck
no good
send to many disk.
Me and my friends took a bisk and lit it on fire and froze it slamed it angaisnt the boor.
(Incidentally, why has this vanished from Google? It's not even in the groups/dejanews archive anymore).