Time Warner to spin off AOL

NEW YORK, April 29 (UPI) -- U.S. telecommunications giant Time Warner Inc. said it would spin off "one or more parts" of its struggling AOL division.

The company said its board had not made a firm decision on how to proceed. In its first quarter report, Time Warner said it "anticipates that it would initiate a process to spin off one or more parts of the business of AOL to Time Warner's stockholders, in one or a series of transactions," The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Time Warner bought AOL in 2001, but few advantages were realized. Time Warner's net income in the first quarter declined 14 percent from a year ago, largely due to declining revenues at AOL, Time Warner's first quarter report said.

In March, Time Warner replaced two AOL top executives with former Google executive Tim Armstrong. At that point, market analysts began to speculate that the company would spin off AOL.

Earlier this month in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Time Warner proposed a debt revision in which the company would guarantee AOL debt using proceeds from HBO, rather than AOL, the Post said.