Big changes coming at Time Warner

Posted Feb 6th 2008 12:31PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Time Warner (TWX), Time Warner Cable (TWC)

After Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) posted earnings today, shares are up more than 4% in late morning trading. Jeff Bewkes conducted his first earnings conference call today, and he revealed the company's key business initiatives. (You can do a quick jump to the AOL story on this or you can head straight over to review the full conference call.)

Bewkes is known for being decisive and making changes based on the numbers, so don't be surprised if there are more changes than these down the road.

In fact, Bewkes noted that Time Warner will be cutting $50 million in corporate spending, with a target of 15% cost reductions on the corporate side of the business.

Bewkes announced that he plans to break up part of AOL by restructuring the access and audience units as two independent businesses in an effort to "significantly increase AOL's strategic options." With Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) recent bid for Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), AOL has suddenly become a more urgent issue for Time Warner and a deal in the future could serve to further recast the internet advertising and search scene.

Bewkes has also hinted at intentions to spin-off or sell its 84% stake in Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) as this business is currently less than optimal. With those shares down 40% over the last year, it's likely that something is coming sooner rather than later. We'll have to see what the formal plans are on this, and it may not be via an outright sale.

Stay tuned, because things are only starting to get shaken up at Time Warner -- and for that matter at AOL.

Jon Ogg is an editor and partner at 247WallSt.com.

Tags: Jeff Bewkes, JeffBewkes, MSFT, TWC, TWX, YHOO

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-06-2008 @ 5:01PM

NewsVisual said...

Time Warner CEO/President Jeff Bewkes said in a statement that the company plans to keep a more vigilant watch over costs in the future. In addition, he said the company will intensify our creative and entrepreneurial focus to move our businesses ahead more quickly. So that must mean that big changes are in the works.