Time Warner (TWX) finally confirmed that Richard Parsons will be stepping down as CEO of the company before his tenure is officially up. Rumors have be swirling for months on the story. Parsons' contract doesn't expire until May 2008.
While Parsons will step down as CEO at the end of the year, he will remain Chairman of the board for an unspecified period of time.
Unsurprisingly, second-in-command Jeffrey Bewkes will take over the reigns of the company on January 1, 2008.
Bewkes "is the right person to be the next CEO of Time Warner, and I couldn't be more delighted that he will lead this company into the future," Parsons said in a statement. "I am confident that Jeff will deliver a new era of growth for all of our company's important stakeholders."
Along with being over the Home Box Office division for seven years, Bewkes has also been chairman of the company's entertainment and networks group. Since 2006 he's been the president and chief operating office of the company.
Most of this probably isn't coming from Parson's performance, as in most areas he's help the company recover from the disastrous merger with AOL. It's that the company can't afford to wait until May 2008 to get things moving in a new direction, something what would have been hard to start and then turn over to a new CEO.
Bewkes, who is generally considered less committed to AOL than Parsons, will probably make some aggressive moves not too long after taking the reigns of the company.
Parsons is credited with settling things down and bringing more cohesion to the company during his tenure. Now that things are fairly settled, he's laid the foundation for Bewkes to come in and build on it.
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