Former Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons dies at age 76

Richard Parsons, who helped lead the divorce between Time Warner and AOL that was considered one of the worst acquisitions in history, has died. He was 76 years old.

His death was confirmed by Lazard, a longtime board member.

Parsons became CEO of AOL Time Warner in 2002, replacing Gerald Levin, who resigned two years after the company’s disastrous $165 billion merger with the upstart Internet company.

As CEO and then chairman, he led the restructuring of Time Warner, reducing debt from $30 billion to $16.8 billion by removing “AOL” from the company’s name and selling off assets such as Warner Music.

“The merger didn’t work out the way many of us expected. The internet bubble burst and we had to fix a data breach,” Parsons told The Independent in 2004. told the paper. The old Time Warner’s basic businesses, including publishing, cable networks, and movies, were doing well. ”

He said that after the merger, AOL’s business collapsed and not only Warner Music Group but the music industry as a whole was in decline. “So we sold our music business and other non-strategic assets to strengthen our balance sheet and bring in new management.”

Parsons resigned from Time Warner in 2007.

Richard Dean “Dick” Parsons was born into a working-class family in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn on April 4, 1948, and grew up in South Ozone Park, Queens, New York. He was the middle child of five children.

He skipped two grades in public school, and at age 16, the 6-foot-4 Parsons enrolled at the University of Hawaii, where he played basketball and met his future wife, Laura Ann Bush, whom they married in 1968. did.

After graduation, he returned to New York state to attend Albany Law School, worked as a part-time janitor to pay for his tuition, and graduated at the top of his class. During his internship in the New York State Legislature, he developed a relationship with Governor Nelson Rockefeller, a moderate Republican who became vice president in Gerald Ford’s administration in 1974 following the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Parsons became deputy director of President Ford’s Council on Internal Affairs.

“The old-school network is alive and well,” Parsons told The New York Times in a 1994 interview. “I didn’t grow up with the old boys, and I didn’t go to school with the old boys. But being part of that Rockefeller inner circle, for me… A group of people has been born for me ever since. ”

After Ford lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter, Parsons returned to New York and, like his friend Rudy Giuliani, joined the law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler in 1977. Mr. and Mrs. Parsons and their three children moved to Briarcliff Manor in rural Rockefeller County, Westchester County. Coincidentally, his maternal grandfather served as groundskeeper for the nearby Kykut, John D. Rockefeller’s estate.

Parson’s clients included Rockefeller’s widow Happy and New York’s Dime Savings Bank. In 1988, he accepted an offer to head Dime Bancorp. The company had struggled during the savings and loan crisis after aggressively approving high-risk mortgage loans in response to the collapse in home prices. In 1989, the company posted a loss of $92.3 million. After ordering major layoffs, by the end of 1993 Parsons had helped the bank complete a $300 million recapitalization. In 1995, he helped engineer the merger of Dime and Anchor Savings, creating one of the nation’s largest savings institutions.

Parsons joined the Time Warner board at the recommendation of Rockefeller’s brother Laurence. He became president of Time Warner in 1995.

As a Rockefeller Republican, Parsons considered himself a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. Mr. Parsons worked on Mr. Giuliani’s New York mayoral campaign, but remained behind the scenes. “I didn’t want to be positioned as the black mayor,” he told the Times years later.

Mr. Giuliani appointed him head of the mayor’s transition team in 1993, but Mr. Parsons turned down an offer to become deputy mayor for finance. Relations with Mr. Giuliani subsequently soured as Mayor Giuliani tried to pressure Time Warner Cable to take over the then-newly founded Fox News Channel in New York.

Two years after leaving Time Warner, Mr. Parsons became Time Warner’s chairman. citygroup In 2009, he helped stabilize giant banks after the financial crisis. He was named interim CEO of the Los Angeles Clippers in May 2014 after the NBA permanently banned owner Donald Sterling for racist comments.

“Like most Americans, I am deeply saddened by the pain that our Clippers team, fans and partners have endured,” Parsons said.

Parsons downplayed race as a factor in his success.

“For many people, race is the defining issue. For me, it’s not,” he told the Times in 1997. “It’s… like air, like height. I have other things to focus on.”

He later came out of retirement and briefly served as chairman of CBS following the firing of Les Moonves following allegations of sexual harassment and assault during the #MeToo movement.

Parsons served as CBS’ interim chairman for just one month before abruptly resigning in October 2018, citing health concerns.

“When I agreed to join the board and serve as interim chair, I was already facing serious health challenges with multiple myeloma, but the circumstances were… “I felt like it was manageable.” Strauss Zelnick. “Unfortunately, unforeseen complications have created additional new challenges, and my doctors have advised that reducing my current workload is essential to my overall recovery.”

Parsons was active in many philanthropic endeavors, including leadership roles at the Jazz Foundation of America, the Apollo Theater Foundation, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. While serving on the Apollo Theater board, he helped the historic Harlem entertainment venue raise nearly $100 million. The Parsons also donated 40 works of art to the American Folk Art Museum to celebrate its 60th anniversary in July 2021.