Time Warner Names Bewkes As President; Logan Retires (New First Officer for Titanic?)

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Dec 21, 2005 | News Roundup

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Time Warner Inc. promoted Jeff Bewkes to president and chief operating officer, making him a clear No. 2 to Chairman and Chief Executive Dick Parsons. [Jeff Bewkes]

Mr. Bewkes had been chairman of the media giant's entertainment and networks group. Time Warner also announced that Don Logan, who was Mr. Bewkes co-equal as head of the company's media and communications group, plans to retire at the end of the year. He will become the nonexecutive chairman of Time Warner Cable's board of directors.

"Since I asked Don and Jeff to help me run the company in the summer of 2002, we have overcome a long list of challenges and put this company back on track," Mr. Parsons said. Now, "we're smoothly transitioning our senior management team with Don's well-earned retirement and Jeff's well-deserved promotion," he said.

Shortly after Mr. Parsons took over as chief executive of Time Warner earlier this decade, he chose Mr. Bewkes and Mr. Logan to split the responsibilities of the chief operating position. In recent years, it started to become clear that Mr. Bewkes was increasingly well positioned to become Mr. Parsons's heir apparent.

In an employment contract reported last year, the media company promised Mr. Bewkes that if Mr. Logan retired and Mr. Bewkes wasn't named president or sole chief operating officer by Jan. 1, 2006, then Mr. Bewkes would have the right to resign from the company with relatively few restrictions. Management recruiters say such clauses are typically given to likely successors to the chief executive.

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Wonder if Kekorian has approved this?