Fergie's Tech Blog

Icahn Wants Time Warner to Shed Cable Unit

An AP newswire article, via SFGate.com, reports that:

Financier Carl Icahn disclosed Monday that he and a group of investors will press Time Warner Inc. to shed its cable TV unit and embark on an aggressive buyback of $20 billion of its own shares.

Icahn, who is known for taking stakes in companies and agitating for strategic changes, said he and several other investors have amassed more than 120 million shares of Time Warner, or about 2.6 percent of the giant media conglomerate, which owns CNN, HBO, Warner Bros. and the country's second-largest cable TV provider.

Earlier this month Time Warner said it planned to repurchase $3 billion of its own shares over the next two years in a bid to raise the company's sagging stock price, but Icahn and his partners believe Time Warner can afford much more dramatic steps to boost shares.

Icahn said in a statement Monday that while he felt Time Warner has done a "commendable job" managing each of its businesses and announced steps to increase shareholder value, "it has not moved quickly enough and it has not proposed measures which would enhance values to the degree necessary to realize the inherent value" of its assets.

posted by Fergie @ 8/15/2005 07:26:00 AM