NY Daily News: Steve Case May Attempt to Buy Back America Online

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 30, 2004 - 3:57am.

Dulles, Va. -- Steve Case, the former chairman of America Online, is reportedly raising $10 billion in an attempt to buy back AOL from parent Time Warner, the New York Daily News reported on Tuesday. "It would be his redemption," one Wall Street source told the Daily News. Case, who headed AOL when it merged with Time Warner in 2000, reportedly explored such a deal last year but was rebuffed because Time Warner wasn't ready to sell. Now that federal investigations into AOL's accounting practices are nearly complete, however, Wall Street insiders believe the time is right. Some analysts say that such a deal would be attractive to Time Warner, which recently chose to drop the "AOL" from its corporate name in an effort to distance itself from the unit's financial concerns. Others, however, believe that the media giant may want to hold onto AOL, now that its business appears to be on the rebound. One industry insider, in fact, said that Time Warner is looking for "far more" than $10 billion for AOL.
http://www.nydailynews.com/03-30-2004/business/story/178518p-155267c.html