The New York Times has a feature on the deal’s 10-year anniversary, and the best part by far are the videos where Gerry Levin, Steve Case, Dick Parsons and Robert Pittman (the former COO) are very candid, more than we would imagine. From the interviews, found in the “Interactive Feature” link, it seems that the guys from AOL knew what they were doing (using the admittedly expensive AOL stock to secure value). To hear Ted Turner describe the “other end” of the deal is almost painful.
One must remember that some seriously talented fund managers got burned shorting AOL at a P/E of 100, 200, 300 or 400 – only to see it climb to the now-absurd level of a 700 P/E ratio.
Tags: AOL, dotcomboom, internetboom, multiples, newyorktimes, riskmanagement, TimeWarner
