Time Warner boss Jeff Bewkes told investors in a series of closed-door meetings Monday that he’s against a sale or a spinoff of HBO but hinted he would entertain a sale of the New York media giant, The Post has learned.
Bewkes said splitting off HBO or the Turner Broadcasting cable-TV business doesn’t make sense in a media world where increasingly scale matters, according to sources briefed on the meetings.
“Splitting up can destroy value,” he told an investor in one meeting, citing the breakup of Viacom as an example. Viacom shares have struggled since Sumner Redstone split up his media empire a decade ago.
But Bewkes played coy when asked about a sale of Time Warner, saying he wanted to “increase shareholder value,” sources said.
A spokesman for Time Warner didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
Bewkes is sitting down with investors as pressure builds to boost the company’s share price. Activists are circling Time Warner again, a decade after it beat back a bid by Carl Icahn to break up the company.
The Post reported Sunday that two of the media giant’s largest longtime investors are running out of patience and would support a sale or a breakup of the company.
Time Warner is worth $100 broken up — more than its current share price, according to one analyst. Shares were up around 2.5 percent at $71.31 in trading Tuesday afternoon.
Icahn told CNBC Monday he owns no shares of Time Warner, home to cable networks like TBS and TNT and the Warner Bros. film studio.
In December, however, a mystery buyer bought $100 million worth of Time Warner call options, which give the purchaser the right to buy shares at a set price in the future, one source noted.
This means Icahn or another investor could hold those options while claiming not to own Time Warner shares.