Chairman and CEO, Time Warner Inc. (last year No. 16) AGE 59 ADDRESS 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. BIO Levin, it seems,
has been employing an old Muhammad Ali trick, the rope-a-dope:
just when you thought he was out of the fight, he comes roaring
back. For much of the '90s bull market, Time Warner's stock sat
stagnant. Laden with debt from the merger of Time Inc. (publisher
of TIME DIGITAL) and Warner Bros., Levin took most of the heat in
the press and from investors for the stock's poor performance.
But he has persevered, and now his huge investments in cable and
the $7 billion acquisition of Turner Broadcasting are paying off,
with Time Warner's stock hitting all-time highs in the past year. 1998 POWER PLAY By betting on cable, Levin created a cash cow for
Time Warner, but it is now becoming evident that his investment
was also a shrewd look to the future. If tomorrow's high-speed
Internet access runs over existing cable lines, then Time Warner
will be sitting pretty. Some analysts estimate that the company
could have just under 3 million homes wired to the Internet by
2003. Bill Gates seems to agree. This year he bought a 10 percent
stake in Time Warner's Road Runner data by cable system. PLACE YOUR BETS As did the rest of the market, Time Warner's stock
dipped at the end of the summer, while big questions concerning
profits and the $16.9 billion debt yoke still loom. But Wall
Street seems to respect Levin coming off the ropes. They call his
stock a solid buy.
