Word: levins
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...believe competition is the soul of both capitalism and pop-cultural creativity. But another deal last week brought the scenario a step toward plausibility. Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting System declared they were deep in negotiations that could lead to a Time Warner purchase, led by chairman Gerald Levin, of Ted Turner's prize fleet of media properties. If it flies, the deal would again make Time Warner the world's largest media outfit, vaulting over Disney, which has claimed the title for a month after agreeing to buy Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion...
...deal showed that the strategies of media kingpins are as fickle as a hemline length. For most of this year, Turner angled desperately to buy a TV network, first nbc in January and cbs until only a few weeks ago. Levin, for his part, had been talking of unloading the company's long-held 19% stake in tbs in order to pay down debt. The game changed when Disney and Cap Cities eloped, raising the ardor and insecurity of moguls everywhere...
...Saturday, Aug. 19, Levin and his wife flew to Montana for lunch at Turner's ranch. His wife, Jane Fonda, drove out to the local airport to meet the Time Warner business jet while Turner made sure lunch was ready. That day Levin laid out the details of the offer, which was the best deal Tur ner had seen for selling the company he had been building for more than 25 years...
...that pitch was only half the battle. The following week Levin summoned Time Warner president Richard Parsons from his vacation for a trip to Englewood, Colorado, where the two executives made their overture to the other major party in the deal, cable king John Malone, whose Tele-Communications empire owns 21% of tbs and holds three seats on its board...
...with it quickly. In deference to surgeons' being under constant pressure to practice creative medicine, their colleagues have granted them unusual latitude in trying innovative procedures. And regulators have gone along--a policy that has come under increasing criticism. "It's a huge gap in the system," says Arthur Levin, director of the Center for Medical Consumers in New York...