Carl Icahn, who is pushing for changes at Time Warner Inc., said chief executive Rich ard Parsons’ plan to fix America Online won’t lift the company’s stock price.
“I agree AOL is undervalued, but that’s not enough,” said Icahn, who is demanding a bigger buyback of shares and a spinoff of the company’s cable-television unit.
Speaking in a phone interview, the billionaire financier was responding to Parsons’ comment Wednesday that turning around the company’s America Online Internet unit was his “No. 1 point of focus.”
Icahn says he is talking to other “large” investors in New York-based Time Warner, the world’s biggest media company, about his demands. Parsons said reviving AOL, which has been losing subscribers, would do more to boost the shares than stock buybacks or a cable spinoff.
The disagreement signals that Icahn plans to keep pressuring Parsons, who told investors Wednesday that he’s considering the financier’s proposals. Icahn, along with investment partners, holds a 2.6 percent stake in the company and plans to nominate candidates for its board. Time Warner needs directors who will advocate investors’ interests, Icahn said Wednesday.
“There’s no argument about there being shareholders representation on the board, especially at a company like Time Warner, where there’s a difference of opinions on such major issues,” Icahn said.
Parsons, 57, is exploring “structural and strategic” changes to boost AOL’s online advertising sales, he said Wednesday at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Communacopia conference in New York.
