On this day in New York · January 10, 2000
AOL Buys Time Warner for $182 Billion
The internet company bought the media company, called it a merger of equals, and it went down as the worst deal in corporate history.
The facts
- Deal value
- About $182 billion in stock and debt
- Ownership split
- AOL shareholders held 55%, Time Warner shareholders 45%
- Deal closed
- January 2001, after FTC approval in December 2000
- 2002 quarterly loss
- $54 billion, the largest ever recorded by a U.S. company at the time
On January 10, 2000, America Online announced it would acquire Time Warner in a deal worth about $182 billion in stock and debt, the biggest corporate merger in American history at the time. AOL was the dial-up giant with 30 million subscribers; Time Warner had the magazines, the movie studios, and the cable lines. Steve Case became chairman of the new AOL Time Warner, and Gerald Levin, who had run Time Warner, took the CEO chair. The deal closed in January 2001, and within two years the combined company was writing down billions as the dot-com bubble collapsed around it.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
I presided over the worst deal of the century, apparently.
Gerald Levin, former Time Warner and AOL Time Warner CEO, on CNBC's Squawk Box, January 4, 2010
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Why it still matters
It's the deal every banker and media executive in New York still points to when they want to say a big number and a bigger stage don't make a good marriage, and that a storied New York media company can lose itself inside its own merger.
Sources
Get the day it happened, the day it happens.
Every morning brief ends with this day in New York history, and every day adds a page to this almanac. Free, in your inbox.
Free to start. The unsubscribe link actually works.