Case in Point: America Online and Time Warner

On January 10, 2000, Stephen Case, cofounder of America Online, and Gerald Levin, CEO of Time Warner, announced the merger transaction between AOL and Time Warner—a deal that had been valued at $350 billion. It would become the largest merger in American history and a groundbreaking combination of size and scale in the media industry. But as many now recall, it is also believed to be one of the most unsuccessful transactions in history (Arango, 2010).

In 1999, when the two organizations began talks of a merger, the vision was to “create unprecedented and instantaneous access to every form of media and to unleash immense possibilities for economic growth, human understanding and creative expression” ...

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