Time Warner's elevator stalls
Few companies inspire such existential angst among investors as Time Warner.
"I want to own it. I want to like it. I keep thinking I have to buy it. And I do. I buy a little," says one fund manager. "Then I think about every one of the divisions, except cable, and I don't really like them."
Some bad karma is weighing on shares of the world's biggest media conglom. The stock's stuck at $16 and change. Seems there's no way, no how, it'll budge.
A year ago, many on Wall Street called this price ridiculously low -- not that they were buying. Now, many more say it's a fair price -- and they're still not buying.
TW seems to be the only one out there buying its stock -- at the brisk clip of 5 million shares a week. And even that's not moving the needle.
Back in 2004, Google paid $1 billion for 5% of the 'Netco -- putting a theoretical value of $20 billion on AOL. The streaming Live Aid concert was a hit. The much-maligned unit was hot again.
But since then it's continued to bleed subscribers. It announced another restructuring last month and no one has any idea if it will work. AOL is giving its service away for free to millions of subs as it shifts to a pure advertising model. No one thinks it's worth $20 billion now. But is it closer to $5 billion -- or to $15 billion?
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