Former Time Warner Boss Dick Parsons Gets Back in the Media Business
by Peter Kafka
Posted on September 16, 2009 at 5:25 AM PT
There are very good odds that there are going to be some very big deals happening in the media world in the next year or so. So this move makes sense: Former Time Warner (TWX) CEO Dick Parsons is joining up with Providence Equity Partners, the private equity firm with a hankering for media investments.
Parsons will be a part-time adviser says the New York Times and will keep his current job as Citigroup (C) chairman as well. Providence’s media bets include MGM and Univision, which haven’t worked out, and Hulu, which has.
Providence and Parsons have worked together at least once before: In 2004, Parsons sold Warner Music Group (WMG) to a consortium that included Providence, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Edgar Bronfman Jr.
Perhaps Providence will tap Parsons’s knowledge of his former employer for another deal: Time Warner executives keep murmuring about the need for magazine publisher Time Inc. to shed some of the 115 titles it operates.
