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Time Warner Trims Its Excesses

By AMY CHOZICK

Published: October 31, 2011

New York Times Business Section

The sprawling taupe-colored offices of Jeffrey L. Bewkes, Time Warner’s chairman and chief executive, overlook Central Park from the 11th floor of one of Manhattan’s most plum pieces of commercial real estate. Mr. Bewkes cannot wait to move out.

To him, the company’s corporate headquarters in the gleaming towers of the Time Warner Center is an “indulgence,” a giant reminder of past mistakes made by one of the world’s largest media companies. “There was a burgeoning overhead reaching $500 million a year, including this edifice you’re sitting in,” Mr. Bewkes said.

Time Warner, one of New York City’s largest commercial tenants, is now studying how to consolidate most of its four million square feet of office space. That probably means finding a new headquarters in a less expensive part of Manhattan and vacating the Time Warner Center, the Time & Life building at Rockefeller Center and many of its remaining 13 New York-area buildings. The company estimated that cutting back on its real estate footprint could save as much as $150 million a year.

The real estate moves are part of a larger effort to slim down a company that many investors say they believe became bloated during the acquisition frenzy of the last decade, when media companies raced to acquire expensive Internet companies. The failure of the 2000 AOL-Time Warner merger, widely considered one of the worst corporate marriages of all time, and other debacles like News Corporation’s $545 million loss on MySpace, have motivated companies to rebalance.

http://http://www.nytimes.com/2011/1...1&ref=business