Posted on February 4, 2009 at 2:59 PM
Filed under: Corporate Strategy | Divesting and Restructuring
Tagged: AOL , Google , Greg Coleman , Jeffrey Bewkes , Microsoft , Time Warner , Yahoo!

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Time Warner Inc., which just reported a $16 billion quarterly loss, has to be frustrated with Internet media company AOL LLC, which reported a 23% drop in quarterly revenue and also announced layoffs.

Sharing the frustration is Google Inc., which spent $1 billion on a 5% stake in AOL in December 2005 and is now asking Time Warner to either buy back the stake or take AOL public. The stake's value is now about a quarter of what it once was.

Time Warner, which is trying to spin off its cable division, is splitting AOL's underperforming Internet access business from its Web portal and advertising business. TW chief executive Jeffrey Bewkes is also looking at deals with Microsoft Corp., which needs a search engine boost, and Yahoo! Inc., which lost its global sales head Greg Coleman to AOL on Tuesday.

Either way, it's clear Google wants out. - Baz Hiralal

Google trying to ditch AOL
AOL-Yahoo?


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