|
People
Lower
Case
Steve
Case built AOL Time Warner but he couldn’t rule
it. His exit as chairman and CEO comes just two years
after he engineered the $112 billion merger that so
far has been a massive flop.
Case,
44, says he quit to avoid a fight at the May shareholders
meeting about his future. Some shareholders — most
notably media mogul Ted Turner and Gordon Crawford of
the Capital Group, an institutional investor —
reportedly wanted him out. In the past year AOL has
come under federal scrutiny into how it booked revenues,
and the parent company has absorbed billions in write-downs
as the Internet unit sank in value. “This company
does not need distractions at this critical time,”
Case said in announcing his decision, which takes effect
in May. He’ll stay on the board of directors. He’s
still AOL’s second-largest individual shareholder,
with 39 million shares.
They’re
not worth as much these days — the share price
has dipped to about $15, down from $56 just after the
merger.
Case
isn’t budging on his support for the merger. “I
believed in AOL Time Warner when we created it, and
I continue to believe in the great potential of this
company and its people.”
Virginia
Business - February 2003
|
