Word: warner
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Robert Pittman is often described as a marketing genius, but by the time he sat down with his boss before the July 4 holiday, he had nothing left to sell. As chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner, Pittman had spent close to three months commuting from corporate headquarters in New York City to the America Online offices in Dulles, Va., where he was assigned to rescue the online service from slowing subscriber growth and a plunge in online advertising. Fixing AOL was going to be a long-term project--and Pittman was no longer in for the long haul...
That's the official version, and no doubt much of it is true. But there's more to the story, which reveals a sharp reversal in strategy at AOL Time Warner...
...RESIGNED. ROBERT PITTMAN, 48, chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner (owner of Time) and one of the architects of the spectacular rise of AOL prior to its merger with Time Warner in 2000; in New York City. Pittman was viewed as a formidable force within the media giant, but has been widely criticized lately as AOL's growth has stalled and the stock has imploded. "It's time to take a break," Pittman said...
...Vivendi's turn to lead, in what some predict will be a cycle of disaggregation among media companies--if not much of corporate America. Shares in media concerns have been eviscerated by an advertising recession, high debt loads and, in AOL Time Warner's case (down 55% this year), slowing Internet subscriber growth. AOL Time Warner shares have also been hit by investor aversion to companies with complex accounting stories, in the wake of bookkeeping scandals at WorldCom, Qwest and Adelphia Communications...
...second-tier brands and inked a lucrative distribution deal with Absolut vodka. More important, he recognized that Seagram's reliance on the slowing liquor business wasn't healthy. He made some shrewd deals, generating a profit of almost 50% on his family's $2.2 billion investment in Time Warner and getting Vivendi to pay a 50% premium for Seagram's shares (alas, he took it in Vivendi stock). And he wisely sold millions of those Vivendi shares, taking about $1 billion off the table...