UBS: TW could spin AOL stake this year

March 17, 2007 NEW YORK - Time Warner Inc. could spin off a stake in online division AOL or merge it with another Internet company as early as this year, a move that would boost the value of the world's largest media company, a UBS analyst said Friday. Time Warner had said earlier this month at an investor conference that it had no such plans for AOL and was confident of its current revamped strategy to boost online ad sales by offering most of its services for free. "Both Dick (Parsons, Time Warner Chief Executive) and I and the board are very optimistic about what they're going to do, which does not lead us to be thinking about taking AOL anywhere," Time Warner Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Bewkes said at a Bear Stearns investors conference.

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