Word: levine
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Levin's relationship with Captain Outrageous has improved since 1985. At that time, Turner's grab for the MGM film library left him desperately short of cash. To the rescue rode Malone's TCI and Time Inc. (which later merged with Warner to form the current company). The stakes Turner gave them in return for the bailout, however--18% for Time Warner and 21% for TCI--left him beholden to the companies and unable to make major moves without their consent. When Levin vetoed a Turner plan to acquire NBC last year, Turner publicly complained that Time Warner's treatment...
Malone a treacherous negotiator? Don't be silly, he says. Equally ridiculous, he adds, is the idea that he plans to make trouble for Levin down the road--even, as some lurid scenarists would have it, helping Ted Turner move against Levin to wrest control of the company. "I know Ted very well," Malone says. "His life-style is such that he doesn't want to be in there running anything. Jerry is king. We're giving him the power to be a really strong CEO." Because Malone controls a huge cable system, FCC rules bar him from controlling more...
...this a vote of confidence or something darker? "What John Malone giveth, John Malone can taketh away," says Porter Bibb, a media-investment banker at Ladenburg, Thalmann who has been a frequent critic of Levin's. Bibb believes that Malone saw the merger as an avenue to power. "Levin is now a puppet on Malone's strings. Malone is never going to be CEO of Time Warner. He'll probably never sit on the board. But he wanted to control Levin, and now he does." A scenario even has Malone divesting some cable interests, getting back his voting stock...
...There are whole cadres of conspiracy theorists who latch onto this notion of Malone and Turner overthrowing Levin," says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Emory Business School. "I don't see it. With support from Turner and Malone, Levin has a lot of new strength." Still, Malone and Levin must co-exist--and that may not be easy. Where Levin's style is subtle and elliptical, Malone's is famously brusque and blunt. Where Levin is slight and professorial, Malone has the square-jawed mien of the off-duty general--and the tactics to match. An executive who knows...
...seaman's loyalty for Turner. "Malone didn't stand in the way of this because Turner wanted to do it," says Barry Diller. "John has made a lot of money with Ted." Malone will behave as long as Turner stays happy. If either of them stops smiling, so does Levin...