The case for keeping Case
Great column by David Fitzpatrick in Fortune on why AOL Time Warner's board should be keeping Case, not villifying him, especially as Microsoft starts to come after them with all guns blazing.
Case is a proven watchdog of the value of his shareholders' investment. He did well for them in the merger of AOL with Time Warner, something that cannot be said for decision-makers at Time Warner. If anyone exercised poor judgement it was participants from that side of the deal: then-CEO Jerry Levin, Parsons, and all those board members who are now said to be out for Steve. They, after all, were the ones who voted in favor of what turned out to be a bad deal for their shareholders -- at least by the evidence so far. In the current Newsweek, columnist Allan Sloan, with the help of financial research firm Aronson & Partners, calculates that had the merger not occurred, AOL's stock would today be $6 or $7, and that Time Warner's would be in the vicinity of $44. The stock in fact is at about $12. So who paid a bigger price? Is it fair to punish a manager because he did what was best for his shareholders?
...For now, AOL Time Warner dominates the consumer Internet business. Why? Because Steve Case had the vision and the tenacity to build the pre-merger AOL in the face of enormous odds, shifting strategy as necessary. Nobody but Case has ever built a business of scale directly in the face of Microsoft in an area it considered a strategic priority. OK, Rob Glaser of RealNetworks is doing it now, too. But such skills are rare -- and invaluable.