One of the big M&A stories of the summer was Rupert Murdoch-led 21st Century Fox’s (FOXA) unsolicited ~$80b bid for Time Warner (TWX). The deal would have created a media behemoth, but after facing resistance from Time Warner and shareholders, Fox yielded (for now) and announced a big buyback instead. A couple important items emerged from all of the… Read More »
At his last earnings call in August, Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes pushed back the timing of the company’s spinoff of Time, Inc. Three months later, another earnings call, and another delay. What had once been planned for completion this year is now projected to occur in the second quarter of 2014. Without elaborating on the reasons… Read More »
The publishing business is changing and with a new world often comes new owners with fresh ideas. Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos recently purchased The Washington Post and hedge fund titan John Henry snatched up the iconic Boston Globe. Even public companies like News Corp (NWSA) and Time Warner (TWX) are in the process or completed unloading their publishing assets into independent… Read More »
One step forward, another step back. With a new CEO finally in place, Time Inc’s spinoff seemed to be gaining some momentum. It turned out to be short lived though as Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes announced during the most recent conference call that the spin would be pushed off until next year. The reason? Our top… Read More »
Time Warner (TWX) has found its man to helm its upcoming magazine spinoff, naming former executive Joseph Ripp as CEO of Time Inc. Mr. Ripp served various roles at Time Inc and Time Warner over a 20 year career there and is expected to join the company in September. He is currently CEO of OneSource Information Services and… Read More »
Just a day after Tribune (TRBAA) announced that it would be separating its publishing assets into a new company, speculation has already started about who will be the next media company to follow the breakup trend. With News Corp’s (NWSA) spinoff completed and Time Warner’s (TWX) on track, the WSJ tossed out Gannett’s (GCI) name as a possible… Read More »
In June, 2012, Barron’s wrote a favorable article about the prospects of Time Warner(TWX). A year later, with the stock up 63%, Barron’s revisits, and though it continues to like the company’s prospects, it concludes that the stock has gotten ahead of itself. Barron’s does believe that the upcoming spin off of Time Warner’s magazine publishing division will… Read More »
Time Warner(TWX) is no stranger to spinoffs. The company once known as AOL Time Warner lost the AOL(AOL) in what has proven to be a successful spin- much more successful, certainly, than the disastrous merger, perhaps the worst in American history, which brought the two firms together. Earlier in 2009, the company spun off Time Warner Cable(TWC). And… Read More »
Friday, after the market closed, Liberty Media Corporation(LMCAD,LMCBD,LMCAV,LMCBV,LMCA,LMCB) announced that it had completed its spinoff from Starz(STRZA, STRZB), formerly the Liberty Media Corporation. For a cogent explanation of the alphabet soup, see our article from last week. As part of the transaction, Starz drew down its credit line and distributed $1.8 billion in cash to Liberty Prior to… Read More »
With the announcement last week that News Corp.(NWSA) would be spinning off its publishing business, analysts have been looking for copycat transactions to propose. It was inevitable that some of them would turn their attention to Time Warner(TWX), and, indeed Jeanine Poggi reports at AdAge that Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser renewed the calls for a Time Inc.… Read More »