AT&T Buys Time Warner

AT&T announced that it had agreed to purchase Time Warner for about $85 billion. Under the terms of the deal, Time Warner shareholders will receive $107.50 per share, half in stock and half in cash. The share price represents about a 20 percent premium to Time Warner's closing price on Friday. Even though the terms of the deal have been announced, Time Warner shareholders and the Department of Justice still must approve the deal, and the chair of the Senate subcommittee on antitrust said the committee would examine the deal as well. Of course this is not the first time that Time Warner has been acquired: In 2000, AOL purchased Time Warner for $160 billion in one of the worst deals in history. In fact, the company had a $99 billion loss in 2003 and things went so bad, the merged company eventually changed its name back to Time Warner.