Ted Turner, the CNN founder whose company was absorbed into the AOL Time Warner empire, said in an interview released yesterday that he was leaving his top post 'in disgust' after losing billions of dollars.
Turner told Fortune Magazine he was concerned that his huge losses would mean that the philanthropic causes he supported would suffer.
Fortune, which is part of the AOL Time Warner conglomerate, noted that Turner will step down as vice chairman of the corporation at Friday's annual shareholder meeting. He was quoted as saying that the final straw came when he was not consulted about a change in top management at CNN.
Turner initially sold his TBS broadcast empire, including CNN, in 1996 to Time Warner. That became absorbed into AOL Time Warner when America Online used its high stock value to acquire the media giant in 2000.
The magazine estimated that Turner's stock holdings declined from $10.7 billion in early 2000 to $1.4 billion as a result of the 81% slide in the value of AOL Time Warner. Because he sold or gave away some stock during that period in the interim, his actual losses down were pegged at $8.5 billion.
