Time Warner to spin off AOL by 2009-end

Media conglomerate Time Warner today said it will spin off AOL into an independent and publicly traded company by the end of this year, a move that would end an eight-year-old merger.

Time Warner has received the green signal from its board for complete legal and structural separation of AOL from the company.

The NYSE-listed entity in a statement said after the proposed transaction, AOL would be an independent and publicly traded firm.

"We believe that a separation will be the best outcome for both Time Warner and AOL. The separation will be another critical step in the reshaping of Time Warner that we started at the beginning of last year, enabling us to focus to an even greater degree on our core content businesses.

"The separation will also provide both companies with greater operational and strategic flexibility. We believe AOL will then have a better opportunity to achieve its full potential as a leading independent Internet company," Time Warner Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bewkes said.

Even though the merger of AOL and Time Warner in 2001 was much talked about, the transaction did not bring the expected synergies between the two entities.