Gerald M. Levin, the former CEO of Time Warner who oversaw the disastrous merger with AOL has since gone down as one of the worst deals in American corporate history, died Wednesday of undisclosed causes. He was 84.
One of his grandchildren confirmed the news to the New York Times and said that Levin had been fighting Parkinson’s disease and died in a hospital in Long Beach, California.
The merger that created AOL Time Warner could not have been more poorly timed. First announced on January 10, 2000 at the height of the dot com bubble, the deal was supposed to combine the then-leader in the still emerging internet service provider industry with the at-the-time largest media company in the world — whose assets included Time Magazine, Warner Bros. HBO and more — to create a powerhouse for the internet age.
But it took a full year before regulators granted final approval. In that time, the dot com bubble burst, the economy began to falter and by the start of 2001 a wave of recessions swept the global economy. Around the same time, the rise of high speed broadband internet gutted landline-focused AOL’s share of ISP market and cratered its value. By the end of the year the company’s stock price dropped more than 50% and in the first quarter of 2002 AOL Time Warner set an unfortunate new record when it took a $54 billion write-down.
But by this point the company’s increasing calamities were no longer Levin’s problem. In mid-2001 he was nearly ousted by a revolt within the company sparked by Vice Chairman Ted Turner and spearheaded by AOL co-founder Steve Case. In December he announced his retirement, effective May, 2022.
More to come…
