Tag Archives: Valuation of Time Warner

All About CARL ICAHN–Book, Lecture, Research, and Articles

Icahn  I hope you grasp how Carl’s methods fit his personality perfectly. I strongly suggest you view the video, then the research report by Lazard and finally tackle the book.

Seven years ago, activist investor Carl Icahn spelled out a blueprint for breaking up media conglomerate Time Warner (TWX) into four separate entities.

See Lazard’s 2006 Analysis on Time Warner for Icahn here (Good research example): lazard_twx 

With this week’s decision by CNNMoney’s parent company to spin off Time Inc., Icahn’s prediction is finally coming true. But he won’t be able capitalize on it. By late 2008, Icahn had completely sold his stake.

In 2006, Icahn pushed for Time Warner to essentially split itself into a content company, a publishing company, a cable services company and an Internet company.

Time Warner’s Time Inc. spin-off will mark the final step in turning the company into exactly what Icahn and a consortium of other activist investors wanted.

Back then, many questioned Icahn’s case for breaking up Time Warner. Icahn’s main foe at the time, former Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons, won that battle. Parsons refused to break up Time Warner, but he agreed to buy back more stock to get Icahn to stop pushing for a breakup (and a new CEO). Icahn wanted to bring in former Viacom (VIA) CEO Frank Biondi to replace Parsons, who eventually stepped down as CEO in late 2007.

Under CEO Jeff Bewkes, who succeeded Parsons, Time Warner spun off Time Warner Cable (TWC) and AOL (AOL) in 2009. Shares of all three companies have solidly outperformed the broader market since those spin-offs.

Related: Is Time Inc. better on its own?

While the two central characters in the Icahn vs. Time Warner showdown have stepped away from the battlefield, analysts and investors cheered this week’s spin-off announcement. Time Warner’s stock has gained nearly 3% since the spin-off was announced late Wednesday and is up nearly 19% so far this year.

Several analysts upgraded the stock and increased their price targets. “The announcement measurably improves Time Warner’s growth profile, margin profile, and rids the mother company of a business which has been under secular siege for quite some time,” B. Riley Caris analyst David Miller wrote in a research note.

Back in 2006, Lazard, working on behalf of Icahn and other shareholders, estimated the content side of Time Warner could be worth as much as $61 billion, while the publishing unit could be worth $14.1 billion.

Today, Credit Suisse analysts estimate that, post-spinoff, Time Warner’s content divisions could be worth as much as $75 billion, while Time Inc. would be worth about $4.1 billion.

Lecture by Icahn at Yale (He recommends reading Aristotle)

60 minutes video: http://youtu.be/wZjms7rRAQw

Articles on Icahn: Icahn Articles130307124234-time-warner-carl-icahn-614xa

Book on Carl Icahn View this folder

plus two other goodies……….just click on View this folder above and download.

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Danny Devito as Carl Icahn: