Time Warner shares soar amid talk of AT&T deal

By Barry Eitel

SAN FRANCISCO (AA) – Shares of Time Warner neared their highest point in five years Friday after reports that AT&T would acquire the media giant, possibly within hours.

Time Warner stock jumped almost 8 percent after the media reports that cited anonymous sources said AT&T is in advanced talks to take over the massive media corporation, which is the third largest in the country behind Comcast and Disney.

Time Warner owns a portfolio that includes HBO, CNN and Warner Brothers, along with dozens of other television channels, news outlets and film studios.

Shares of AT&T dropped more than 3 percent amid the news.

There was no information about how much AT&T would pay. Time Warner currently has a market value of $71 billion, while AT&T is worth $231 billion.

Never before has a telecommunications company the size of AT&T bought a content company on Time Warner’s scale. In fact, federal law once prohibited the two industries from joining.

In a note to investors about the reports, Credit Suisse research analysist Omar Sheikh warned that U.S. regulators would take an extremely close look at any deal. Still, Sheikh was very supportive of the acquisition.

“Control over a leading film and TV studio, plus valuable sports and drama networks, [Time Warner] is the partner of choice if any consolidation is to take place in U.S. media in our view,” he wrote.

Time Warner was part of one of the most infamous business mergers of all time when it was purchased by AOL for $164 billion in early 2000 at the height of the first tech industry boom.

The venture quickly nosedived after AOL subscribers and advertisers dried up. Time Warner spun off AOL in 2009, and the latter was then acquired last year by wireless company Verizon in another merger of media and telecommunications.