AOL Time Warner Posts Loss of Nearly $100 Billion!!!

Reuters ^ | January 29, 2003

[Timesink]

AOL TW Posts Loss of Nearly $100 Billion

Wed January 29, 2003 04:56 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - AOL Time Warner Inc., the world's largest media company, on Wednesday posted a loss for all of 2002 of nearly $100 billion, the largest annual loss in U.S. history, after taking a $45.5 billion charge in the fourth quarter to write down the value of assets.

AOL reported a fourth quarter net loss of $44.9 billion, or $10.04 a share, after taking the non-cash charge to write down the value of its embattled America Online business and other assets, compared to a year-ago loss of $1.8 billion, or 41 cents a share.

The company, which in the first quarter had reported a net loss of $54 billion after writing down the value of assets, posted a full-year 2002 net loss of $98.7 billion.

The full-year loss exceeded the gross domestic product of Egypt in 2001.

Strength in the company's film/entertainment business, with hits like the "Lord of the Rings" sequel, and cable networks offset weakness in the fourth quarter at America Online, which has been suffering from a sharp slowdown in advertising spending and subscriber growth.

The quarter capped a tumultuous year. About two years after AOL completed its $106.2 billion purchase of Time Warner, the old media veterans from Time Warner are running the show and the key architects of the deal have been forced out amid calls from angry investors that view the merger as a failure.

AOL Time Warner said its revenue in the quarter grew 8 percent to $11.4 billion.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) -- a key measure of cash flow --- rose 16 percent to $2.8 billion from a year-earlier for the quarter.

Analysts polled by Multex expected, on average, EBITDA of $2.6 billion.

The company said it sees revenue growth for the 2003 full year in the mid-single digits and said it sees EDITDA to be essentially unchanged to down in the low-single digits.

Earlier on Wednesday, AOL Time Warner said it sold its 8.4 percent stake in Hughes Electronics Corp. as part of its efforts to cut its debt load.

The company said it plans to reduce total consolidated debt to approximately $20 billion by the end of 2004.

Shares of AOL closed up 30 cents, or 2.2 percent, at $13.96 on the New York Stock Exchange ahead of the results.

[exit82]

Grampa, you are so right! The DNC is losing a huge cash cow. Now the heifer Senator from NY will have to rethink her stratergya little.

AOL/Time-Warner was so typical of the smoke and mirrors ecomony of Clintoon. No value-no worth.

[HairOfTheDog]

"She was just using us. She never intended to pay us, no...not at all" they will say.

[MaeWest]

Funky Christmas tree ornaments.

[aristeides]

So when will CNN or the Clintoonian Noodle Nuts be put up for sale?

I have a feeling that's why Ted Turner quit.

[aristeides]

I like to think that the Democrat induced Netscape purchase by AOL, who in turn was purchased by AT&T, in turn scraffed up by the Ted Turner Time-Warner anit-Microsoft Crowd is getting their just deserved.

I wonder if all those deals were only able to happen because they had the blessing of Joel Klein's Antitrust Division at Janet Reno's Justice Department.

[Grampa Dave]

I hadn't even thought of how these DNC corporations going belly up would affect the Hilldebea$t. I was just looking at it as a national picture. In two years a lot of corporate cash cows for the DNC are belly up or getting ready to assume that position. They have to be really hurting for money.

However, you are right on target re the Hilldebeast. One of her biggest cash cows, Martha, is out of the donations business. The Hilldebeast could really be hurting for money really bad when the Opecker Thugs and these Rat CEOs no longer exist. Ted Turner was a big cash cow for the Clintoons, and he is back to breeding buffaloes to be with his family.

[Grampa Dave]

When I saw on Fox News the headline on the bottom of the screen about Ted Fonda leaving, the first thing that came to my mind was a plan to sell CNN was discusse.

Ted Fonda got up and said, "You will sell CNN over my dead body!"

Then the bean counters at AOL said> "That could be arranged if you don't resign and go breed buffalo to spend time with your family."

So Ted Fonda is leaving AOL/TW/CNN and whatever. Adios Ted and please let the door knob whack you as you leave!

[montag813]

The full-year loss exceeded the gross domestic product of Egypt in 2001.

Wow, that's a lot of dates, explosive belts and King Tut T-Shirts.

[Grampa Dave]

All these rat run companies gave massive sums of money to the DNC. Then Jake Reno okayed any takeover or whatever they wanted. She even sued Microsoft to please them.

In January 2001, the Clintoon left power. Jake Reno could no be the enforcer for these rat run companies. They invested in the Clintoons and the DNC instead better products, services and personnel. That investment ran out of air when GW became president.

[Mudboy Slim]

I'm dancin' a Happy Jig, I am...MUD

[Mudboy Slim]

Is Jake Reno Butch's Brother?!

MUD

[Mudboy Slim]

"Ted Fonda is leaving AOL/TW/CNN"

'Bout time, he's an FRickin' IDIOT!! And an Anti-American...MUD

[BrucefromMtVernon]

Have you ever subscribed to AOL and made requests for technical assistance? Their product is lousy and their service is lousy as well. They deserve to lose money.

[Grampa Dave]

Jake is Janet.

[Grampa Dave]

Poor Teddy Fonda. Jane doesn't want him! AOL doesn't want him. Now the rats don't want him as he loses tons of money each day.

So he will have to go breed buffalo to have some family and friends to chew the fat with.

[Mudboy Slim]

So is Butch...MUD

[Focault's Pendulum]

AOL sucks. They are to expensive.

It's possible that by sometime next year you will be posting....

AOL sucked. They were too expensive.

BTW....they're not an ISP....they're an adventure!!!!....especially when you try to uninstall them....as if they say to you in true gladiator fashion......Let the games begin!!!!

[Mudboy Slim]

Is he gonna be despoiling Montana or Wyoming?! I fergot...MUD

[beckett]

The blood-soaked field is littered with the carcasses of the dead. Pittman, Case, Turner, Levin -- and scores of second-tier AOL execs.

Case's brilliant ploy (some say he slipped a mickey into Gerry Levin's drink to make him agree to the deal), has now turned into a disaster, and a morality play. Was it ethical for Case to reach so high, when he knew damn well AOL was not in the same league as TW? Was it ethical for him to use the phony numbers of the bubble and the irrational exhuberance of the internet euphoria of the late 90s to convince Levin that his company was more valuable than it really was?

[GailA]

This is terrible, does this mean I'll have to purchase targets now?