Gerald Levin, the visionary govt within the early days of HBO whose profession shall be eternally marred after he orchestrated the merger of Time Warner and AOL, a debacle that destroyed the worth of staff’ retirement accounts and culminated in a historic $100 billion write-down, has died. He was 84.
Levin died Wednesday in a hospital, his grandchild Jake Maia Arlow instructed The New York Occasions. He had battled Parkinson’s illness since being recognized in 2006 and lived most just lately in Lengthy Seashore, California.
Levin was an legal professional who labored for a 12 months in Iran earlier than becoming a member of HBO at its inception in 1972 as a programming govt. He was promoted to CEO a 12 months later, and a 12 months after that he satisfied guardian firm Time Inc. to take HBO to cable firms nationwide by way of satellite tv for pc expertise, incomes him the nickname of “resident genius.”
The Philadelphia native and College of Pennsylvania Legislation College graduate was elected a Time board member in 1988 and rapidly helped prepare the corporate’s $14 billion acquisition of Warner Communications, bringing Warner Bros. and Warner Music into the fold.
Levin was named co-CEO of Time Warner together with Steven J. Ross in early 1992, then had the title for himself when Ross died 10 months later from prostate most cancers.
Time Warner meandered below Levin’s early tenure, however he impressed Wall Avenue in 1996 by buying Turner Broadcasting System, thus including CNN, TNT, TCM and Cartoon Community to the conglomerate’s rising record of belongings. The merger additionally returned to Warner Bros. rights to its pre-1950 films, which Turner had bought years earlier, and it made media mogul Ted Turner a board member and first Time Warner shareholder.
In 1997, Levin’s son Jonathan, a 31-year-old highschool English instructor within the Bronx, was murdered by a former scholar who tortured him with a knife till he surrendered the password to his financial institution ATM card. Buddies known as the tragedy a “defining second” for Levin, who already had a fame for quoting Greek philosophers and the Bible, and he started brainstorming methods to depart an inspiring, world-changing legacy by his management of Time Warner.
“Levin introduced himself as a scholarly, upright man who simply occurred to be the CEO of the world’s largest media firm. He didn’t simply wish to be remembered as a CEO who’d improved the underside line; he aspired to be identified for a lot extra,” Nina Munk wrote in her 2004 e book, Fools Rush In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner.
Within the late Nineties, Levin figured, accurately, that the Web would eternally alter the best way media was delivered and sought a dramatic method in for Time Warner, which had stumbled with its personal lackluster digital initiatives like Entertaindom and Full Service Community.
After months of negotiations between Levin and AOL CEO Steve Case, they agreed to merge the 2 firms, with 55 % going to AOL’s shareholders and 45 % going to Time Warner’s. The latter firm was far greater in each metric (annual income, for instance, was $27 billion vs. $5 billion) apart from one: market capitalization, which is the worth Wall Avenue placed on every of the corporate’s shares.
By the point the merger was introduced in early 2000, AOL’s 17 million subscribers already have been rising impatient with gradual, dial-up web suppliers, and shortly they’d be fleeing in droves for high-speed cable suppliers like Time Warner Cable, owned then, in fact, by Time Warner.
After the merger, Levin pledged that synergies and the web’s fast progress would rapidly result in $40 billion in income and $11 billion in money move for the newly minted AOL Time Warner. Nevertheless, a bursting inventory bubble, falling advert charges and the terrorist assaults of Sept. 11, 2001, devastated the corporate.
Levin stepped down as CEO of AOL Time Warner in Could 2002, changed by Richard Parsons, and that 12 months the corporate reported a $100 billion loss, the biggest within the historical past of company America. A 12 months later, Parsons eliminated AOL from the corporate identify.
At its nadir, which didn’t come till a number of years after Levin’s departure, shares of the corporate identified once more as Time Warner had misplaced 92 % of their worth, and Levin went on CNBC in 2010 to apologize to shareholders, particularly staff who misplaced their jobs or noticed the worth of their retirement accounts plummet.
“I presided over the worst deal of the century, apparently … I’ve clearly been reflecting on that,” he instructed CNBC anchor Joe Kernen. “I’m actually very sorry in regards to the ache and struggling and loss that was induced.”
Extra just lately, Levin had been encouraging media moguls — and CEOs typically — to push for social change and never fear about offending Wall Avenue, and a few points he was keen about earlier than his demise have been holistic well being care and gun management. He referred to himself as “a devoted, spiritual vegan” in a June 2016 interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“How will you justify an assault rifle as being a sound Second Modification instrument? Let’s hear from a few of the people who lead our firms what they consider,” Levin stated throughout that interview, which occurred two weeks after Omar Mateen killed 49 individuals at a homosexual nightclub in Orlando. “Each time there’s a homicide or a mass killing, it brings again my circle of relatives’s expertise, and every time I hope that we’re going to do one thing.”
In 2004, Levin married his third spouse, Dr. Laurie Ann Levin, a former producer, agent and spouse of producer Jack Rapke, and he had been serving to her run Moonview Sanctuary, a fancy, holistic therapeutic institute she based in 1998 in Santa Monica. He additionally backed StartUp Well being, which invests in next-generation well being initiatives, and he introduced Case in as an investor as properly.
Levin additionally was a senior adviser to Oasis TV, which has been attempting to ascertain itself as a supplier of TV content material for the spa crowd.
Levin went public about affected by Parkinson’s illness shortly after Robin Williams dedicated suicide in 2014, partly as a result of Williams was depressed and thought he was within the early levels of the identical illness. (An post-mortem later revealed that the comic really had suffered from Lewy physique dementia, not Parkinson’s).
“I used to be educated to not present my feelings. You couldn’t inform by taking a look at me what I used to be considering as a result of I used to be an ace negotiator. I imply, life was a poker sport. What a horrible factor. So I don’t let Parkinson’s dominate my life,” he instructed THR.
“I’d like to open a remedy middle that treats everyone on the planet. Not only for habit or despair or psychological well being points or Alzheimer’s. All people wants assist.”
Levin was beforehand married to Carol Needelman and Barbara Riley. Survivors embrace his youngsters, Anna, Laura, Leon and Michael, and 7 grandchildren.