Time for AOL-TW to Grow Up, Fast
ojr.org | at | by Mike
Consider: Since the merger was announced on Jan. 10, 2000, the company's value has decreased by a mind-blowing $160 billion. Last month, AOL Time Warner took a $54 billion quarterly write-down -- the biggest quarterly loss in U.S. history. (To put that in perspective, the entire U.S. newspaper industry is worth $55 billion.) Last week, as new CEO Richard Parsons assumed the company's reins, he signaled that a back-to-basics approach was in order, one that would focus on improving the fundamentals of the company's individual business units.
In recent weeks the news media have lavished saturation coverage upon the company's woes. But almost all of the attention has focused on the its incredible shrinking stock price; the prospect of layoffs; or the new parlor game among analysts and pundits of predicting what the empire's breakup might fetch.