Updated at 2:20 Eastern to include TW response: Tempted to say Carl Icahn went global thermonuclear in his letter to shareholders filed Tuesday with the SEC but I think he has a few more levels of invective to go beyond “paralysis of inaction.” Short story: nothing Time Warner has done is any good and nothing it does can be any good unless the board follows the demands of Icahn to buy back $20 billion in stock, spin off the cable company completely and, well, give up being on the board.
He added a little something for the press: “The Time Warner PR machine would like you to believe that Mr. Parsons and the Time Warner Board have been performing well and taking the necessary steps to deliver value for shareholders, and it appears that many in the press have accepted this storyline.” Wonder if Sunday’s NYT TW profile set some of this off?
Text of letter
Update: Time Warner’s official response: The comopany reiterates its priorities for driving increased returns and it’s not the blueprint Icahn demands. Time Warner’s focus continues to be on accelerating the AOL transition, producing “industry-leading financial results at our other businesses”; consider increases in dividend or share buybacks or both; and completing the Adelphia-Comcast transactions. The response focuses on actions of the last three years, unlike Icahn’s letter, which takes the board to task for having 12 members who approved the AOL merger.
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