28 18:24 OL May Have Misstated Another $400 Mln, SEC Says (Update3)
By Kim Chipman
New York, March 28 (Bloomberg) -- AOL Time Warner Inc. may have misstated an additional $400 million at its online unit where U.S. regulators already are investigating advertising accounting, the company said in a filing.
The expanded investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission relates to two separate advertising agreements AOL Time Warner struck with Bertelsmann AG, the company's former partner in its AOL Europe venture, the filing said. AOL Time Warner is the world's biggest media company.
The SEC has said its ``preliminary'' view that at least some of the $400 million in ad sales Bertelsmann bought from America Online in 2001 should have been recorded differently, AOL Time Warner said in the filing.
``At the time the Bertelsmann transactions took place, both we and our independent auditors believed that they were accounted for appropriately,'' AOL Time Warner Chief Executive Richard Parsons said in an e-mail memo to employees obtained by Bloomberg News.
AOL Time Warner already has restated two years of results, reducing revenue by $190 million, after finding improperly recorded sales at America Online.
The company, which in January posted the largest annual loss in U.S. history, also today said in a filing that it paid no bonuses in 2002 to Parsons and Chairman Stephen Case.
The New York-based company gave Parsons a $3.4 million pay package for the year, including stock options valued at $2.1 million on the day they were granted, according to a proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
AOL Time Warner in January posted a $45.5 billion fourth- quarter writedown, reflecting the decline in the value of America Online and the company's cable systems. The writedown led to a net loss of $44.9 billion in the quarter. The full-year loss was $98.7 billion.
AOL Time Warner disclosed the new investigation in an SEC filing today after the close of U.S. markets. AOL Time Warner shares fell 19 cents to $11.35 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has fallen 52 percent in the past year. |
