Time Warner reports 20% rise in profits

US based World’s largest media company Time Warner has reported favorable revenue figures for the last quarter as the current management at the top of the helms claimed that the company has never performed better and is under the best administration possible.

Time Warner chairman Dick Parsons is already facing a lot of criticism from around and is fending off an attempted boardroom coup from veteran corporate raider Carl Icahn. Icahn owns around 3% of the shares in the company and was one of the most vocal challengers of the Time Warner’s deal with Google over America Online.

He is also pressing for the removal of the directors and a possible break-up of the company. He claims that Time Warner is underperforming in the market and the share prices are down. Mr Parsons spoke on the share price concerns in the market: “2005 was a very good year for the company but with one glaring and frustrating exception - our stock price.”

The shares of the company are 45% down since hitting the high in 2002. However, the current board of directors is confident about the health of the company. The company has put forward four priorities for the current year: to maintain and improve the market leading position of its traditional media businesses, to expand AOL more aggressively, to complete the acquisition and integration of the Adelphi and Comcast cable businesses, and to improve shareholder returns.

It would be interesting to see how they perform this year. AOL is looking better than it has in the recent years and the deal with Google gives it a lot more credibility in the market for the investors.

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