"OT" but I own some, Stan ;0( AOL Time Warner Posts Record $54.2 Bln 1st-Qtr Loss (Update4)
By Aimee Picchi
quote.bloomberg.com
New York, April 24 (Bloomberg) -- AOL Time Warner Inc. had a $54.2 billion loss, the biggest in U.S. history, because it wrote down the value of America Online Inc.'s purchase last year of Time Warner Inc.
The first-quarter loss at the world's biggest media company widened to $12.25 a share from $1.37 billion, or 31 cents, a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Sales at the owner of People and Fortune magazines and the HBO cable-television network rose 7.1 percent to $9.76 billion.
AOL Time Warner wrote down the value of acquired assets by $54.2 billion after its stock fell 74 percent since the purchase was announced in January 2000. The company, which twice lowered financial targets in the past year, again reduced its 2002 forecast, citing declining ad sales at its America Online unit.
The loss ``is a recognition that AOL paid too much for Time Warner,'' said George Gilbert, who helps manage the Northern Technology Fund, before the results were released. ``If they paid for it in cash, it would be a real disaster, but they paid for it in AOL funny money.'' Gilbert's fund owns AOL Time Warner stock.
The New York-based company lowered its forecast for 2002 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- a measure of operating cash flow -- to a range of 5 percent to 9 percent, citing declines in America Online's advertising sales. Previously it had predicted cash flow growth of 8 percent to 12 percent. The company stuck to its earlier target for 2002 sales to rise 5 percent to 8 percent. |
