Posted: 30th Jan, 2004 By: MarkJ
The president of AOL Europe, Philip Rowley, has spoken of his hope that the ISPs positive financial results will quell any rumours that the company may be up for sale:
"I very strongly believe, and I'm sure [Time Warner chief executive] Dick Parsons agrees too, that selling out at this stage would not be in the best interest of shareholders," Philip Rowley, president of AOL Europe, told Reuters in an interview.
Speculation has been rife for more than a year that the cash-strapped Time Warner, the world's largest media company, would sell off its consistent money-losing operation AOL Europe.
But cost-cutting initiatives and an expansion into high speed broadband services in Britain, France and Germany have pushed it into the black on an EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) basis, said Rowley.The
ZDNet item notes that AOL Europe has a total of 6.4 million subscribers, 900,000 of which have signed up to the ISPs new broadband services. Despite customer losses in the USA, its EU wing still appears to be holding steady.