Time Warner Inc. said Friday that fourth-quarter net income nearly doubled but reported revenue growth that was the slowest in a year.
The New York-based media conglomerate posted net income of $1.13 billion, or 24 cents a share, up from $639 million, or 14 cents a share, a year earlier, when profit was dragged down by costs related to the sale of Warner Music.
Excluding items, Time Warner, whose vast stable of media brands includes HBO, Warner Bros., CNN and People magazine, would have earned 20 cents a share, beating estimates by 4 cents a share, according to Thomson First Call. Sales rose 1.9 percent, to $11.1 billion.
The company’s AOL division posted an 8 percent rise in profits, to $326 million, as revenue rose 1 percent. AOL continued to lose subscribers, however. It reported a subscriber count of 22.2 million domestic users, down 464,000 from the previous quarter and 2 million below year-ago levels.
Earnings from the company’s movie and TV studios, which tend to be volatile depending on release schedules, slumped 27 percent, to $284 million, as revenue fell 3 percent.
Cable networks, a division that includes CNN, HBO, TNT and TBS, reported a 10 percent increase in earnings, to $663 million, on a 6 percent rise in revenue. Earnings rose 8 percent on flat revenue in publishing, a division that includes Time, People, Sports Illustrated and the Time Warner Book Group.
Time Warner Cable, the nation’s second-largest cable operator, behind Comcast Corp., boosted profit 11 percent, to $887 million, on a 10 percent jump in revenue.
Time Warner is close to completing an investigation by regulators into bookkeeping practices at its AOL unit, and has already set aside a reserve of $500 million to settle the claims.
Shares of Time Warner lost 12 cents, to $18.04, on the New York Stock Exchange.
In other earnings news:
– Hewitt Associates Inc. said first-quarter earnings rose 16 percent, thanks in part to a 46 percent jump in revenue from its outsourcing business.
The Lincolnshire-based company said net income in the quarter rose to $34 million, or 28 cents a share, from $29.4 million, or 30 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. The latest result fell 1 cent a share short of estimates. The number of shares outstanding increased in the first quarter, accounting for the decline in per-share results.
Revenue surged 32 percent, to $725.3 million. Revenue from outsourcing operations climbed to $520.4 million from $355.1 million.
Hewitt stock climbed $2.19, or 7.5 percent, to $31.28, on the NYSE.
– BorgWarner Inc., the world’s biggest maker of vehicle automatic-transmission parts, said fourth-quarter earnings rose 35 percent, helped by increased sales to European and Asian automakers.
Net income climbed to $67.7 million, or $1.19 a share, from $50 million, or 90 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Sales increased 11 percent, to $889 million.
Shares of BorgWarner shed 65 cents, to $52.60, on the NYSE.
