After rejection of a rumored premium-priced $85-per-share offer from Rupert Murdoch in 2014 raised eyebrows, the prospect of Jeff Bewkes selling WarnerMedia (then known as Time Warner) seemed impossible. But he ended up facilitating an AT&T acquisition last October at a price of $107.50.
The transaction enables plugging WarnerMedia content into AT&T’s direct-to-consumer connections for on-demand video consumption that is sweeping media, as the big bundle of cable TV channels erodes. The merger bets that AT&T distribution pipes will extract increased value. Bewkes plans to stick around post-merger for a transition period, and WarnerMedia shareholders hang around too because half the purchase price is in AT&T stock.
Earlier, Bewkes steered his $28 billion-revenue media/entertainment conglomerate to financial health after stumbles by his predecessors–all the while maintaining hefty investments in content. He shed its magazine publishing business in 2014, and the troublesome AOL online unit and cable TV systems arm in 2009.
Bewkes rose through the ranks of the company’s Home Box Office unit, moving over to the corporate side in 2002. He earned an undergraduate degree from Yale University and an MBA from the Stanford University. Bewkes departed WarnerMedia in 2018.
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