Carl Icahn apparently believes the best way to get value out of Time Warner is to divert CEO Dick Parson’s attention away from running the company to dealing with him. Following a wave of speculation, Icahn announced today that he has put together a group of investors holding more than 120 million shares with about $2.2 billion. Each member of the group — Icahn Partners, Icahn Partners Master Fund, Franklin Mutual Advisors, Jana Partners and SAC Capital Advisors — has pledged to buy another 500 million shares. Most notably, Ted Turner is not part of the group. The group wants Time Warner to spin off the cable business and buy back $20 billion in stock.
A cable spinoff has been discussed for years. Time Warner already has an IPO planned for part of the cable business but an actual spin-off in the near future may be complicated by the current deal underway to acquire Adelphia with Comcast and divvy it up. More to come.
Subscriber content
?
Subscriber content comes from Gigaom Research, bridging the gap between breaking news and long-tail research. Visit any of our reports to learn more and subscribe.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments have been disabled for this post