Time Warner Inc chairman Richard Parsons said he would probably step down after this year, a move that would allow chief executive officer Jeffrey Bewkes to take over the position at the world’s biggest media company.
“We still have some work to do in the stock market, but our prospects for the future are bright,” Parsons, 60, said at the New York-based company’s annual shareholder meeting today in Atlanta. “I know I am leaving the company in good hands.”
Bewkes, who became CEO in January, has a contract that allows him to retire if he isn’t named chairman after one year. The terms entitle him to as much as US$19 million in base salary and bonuses. The deadline gives the board until Jan. 1 to determine whether Bewkes, 55, will replace Parsons.
Bewkes is planning to divest the 84 percent stake in Time Warner Cable Inc to focus on entertainment assets and the AOL Internet unit. The move will split off a business that accounted for 36 percent of the parent company’s US$11.4 billion in first- quarter sales and a third of its operating profit.
Time Warner named Parsons CEO in 2002 after the US$124 billion acquisition by AOL led to record losses and a 60 percent plunge in the company’s shares, sparking lawsuits from shareholders who alleged AOL inflated its stock price to make the purchase.
Parsons, who joined Time Warner’s board in 1991, spent the first three years of his tenure selling assets and cutting costs to return Time Warner to profitability. He also settled a class- action suit over AOL for more than US$2.5 billion.
AOL continues to be a drag on the company. In the first quarter, AOL’s profit plunged 74 percent as a 1 percent increase in advertising sales failed to make up for the shrinking Internet-access business.
“They’ve really got to get rid of AOL,” Porter Bibb, a managing partner at Mediatech Capital Partners LLC in New York, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “If they don’t unload AOL, this company is going to be mired in the low teens.”
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
RSS