Richard ‘Dick’ Parsons
Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | getty images
Richard Parsons, who helped lead Time Warner’s divorce from AOL in one of the worst mergers and acquisitions in history, has died. He was 76 years old.
His death was confirmed by Lazard, where he was a long-time board member.
Parsons became CEO of AOL Time Warner in 2002, replacing Gerald Levin, who stepped down two years after the media giant merged with the massive $165 billion Internet giant.
As CEO and later chairman, he led Time Warner’s turnaround, including dropping “AOL” from the company’s name and selling Warner Music and other assets, reducing the company’s debt from $30 billion to $16.8 billion.
“The merger didn’t work out as many of us expected. The Internet bubble burst and we had to deal with the leaks,” Parsons told The Independent in 2004. Time Warner’s existing basic businesses, including publishing, cable networks, and movies, were doing well.”
He said that after the merger, AOL’s business collapsed and Warner Music Group was declining along with the entire music industry. “So we sold our music business and other non-strategic assets to strengthen our balance sheet and bring in new management.”
Parsons resigned from Time Warner in 2007.
rockefeller connection
Richard Dean “Dick” Parsons was born on April 4, 1948, to a working-class family in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, and grew up in South Ozone Park, Queens, New York. He was the second of five siblings.
He attended public school, skipped two grades, and at age 16, the 6-foot-4-inch Parsons entered the University of Hawaii, where he played basketball and met his future wife, Laura Ann Bush, whom he married in 1968.
After graduation, he returned to New York State and attended Albany Law School, paying his tuition by working part-time as a janitor, and finishing at the top of his class. During his internship in the New York State Legislature, he became involved with moderate Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who became vice president under Gerald Ford upon President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. Parsons became Deputy Director of President Ford’s Domestic Policy Council.
Parsons told The New York Times in a 1994 interview: “The Old Boy Network is alive and well.” “I didn’t grow up with the old boys. I didn’t go to school with the old boys. But being part of the Rockefeller entourage created a group of people who seemed to me to be out. Since then, I’ve been out.”
After Ford was defeated by Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election, Parsons returned to New York and joined the law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler in 1977, as did his friend Rudy Giuliani. Parsons, his wife, and their three children moved to Briarcliff Manor in Rockefeller country, Westchester County. Coincidentally, his maternal grandfather was the caretaker of John D. Rockefeller’s nearby estate, Kykuit.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (left) and Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons talk at a media welcome party hosted by Time Warner before the Republican National Convention in New York, New York, on August 28, 2004.
Dennis Brack | Bloomberg | getty images
Parson’s clients included Rockefeller’s widow Happy and New York’s Dime Savings Bank. In 1988, he accepted an offer to head Dime Bancorp, which was weathering the savings and loan crisis after aggressively approving high-risk mortgage loans due to a collapse in housing prices. In 1989, it recorded a loss of $92.3 million. After ordering massive layoffs by the end of 1993, Parsons helped the bank complete a $300 million recapitalization. In 1995, he helped Dime merge with Anchor Savings to create one of the nation’s largest thrift agencies.
Parsons joined the Time Warner board of directors on the recommendation of Rockefeller’s brother Laurance. He became president of Time Warner in 1995.
As a Rockefeller Republican, Parsons saw himself as both a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. Parsons worked for Giuliani’s New York mayoral campaign but maintained a behind-the-scenes profile. “I didn’t want to position myself as the black man in the market,” he told the Times years later.
Giuliani appointed him head of the mayor’s transition team in 1993, but Parsons turned down an offer to become deputy mayor. Relations with Giuliani soured after the mayor pressured Time Warner Cable to run the then fledgling Fox News Channel in New York.
Two years after resigning from Time Warner, Parsons became its chairman. Citigroup In 2009, he helped stabilize the big bank after the financial crisis. In May 2014, he was appointed interim CEO of the Los Angeles Clippers after owner Donald Sterling was permanently banned from the NBA for making racist comments.
“Like most Americans, I am deeply troubled by the pain endured by the Clippers team, our fans, and our partners,” Parsons said.
Parsons dismissed race as a factor in his success.
“For many people race is the deciding issue,” he told the Times in 1997. “For me it is not.” .”
He later briefly served as chairman of CBS, retiring after Les Moonves was ousted following allegations of sexual harassment and assault during the #MeToo movement.
Parsons abruptly resigned in October 2018, citing health concerns, after just one month as interim president of CBS.
“When I agreed to join the board and serve as interim chairman, I was already experiencing serious health issues with multiple myeloma, but I felt the situation was manageable,” Parsons said in a statement to CBS. Strauss Zelnick. “Unfortunately, unexpected complications have created additional new challenges and doctors have advised that reducing my current commitments is essential to my overall recovery.”
Parsons was involved in many charitable organizations, including key roles at the Jazz Foundation of America, the Apollo Theater Foundation, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. was active in While serving on the Apollo Theater board, he helped the historic Harlem entertainment venue raise nearly $100 million. Parsons and his wife also donated 40 works of art to the American Folk Art Museum in July 2021 to commemorate its 60th anniversary.
