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Turner selling 60 million AOL shares

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - Less than four months after his resignation as AOL Time Warner's vice chairman, outspoken media mogul Ted Turner on Monday sold half his stake in the world's largest media company -- 60 million shares worth almost $800 million.

The stake, valued at more than $4.2 billion before the January 2000 merger of AOL and Time Warner, was sold through Goldman Sachs, according to various media reports. AOL representatives did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

"I'll be glad when Turner is out altogether. He's messing with the stock price, and his ownership causes an overhang of uncertainty in AOL stock," said Angela Kohler, global media analyst for Federated Investors in Pittsburgh.

"Maybe it'll enable AOL now to concentrate more on running its businesses than fighting a boardroom battle," said Roger Groh, president of San Francisco-based Groh Asset Management.

Turner, AOL's largest individual shareholder, announced his resignation from the vice chairmanship in January.

Shares of AOL, the world's largest media company (AOL) , fell 7 cents to close at $13.38 on Monday. In after-hours trade, the stock dropped another 1.6 percent.

The mogul's resignation was seen as the culmination of his vigorous opposition to the AOL-Time Warner merger.

Turner watched the company's share price tumble from a split-adjusted $71 just after the January 2000 merger to a low of $8.70 last July.

His anger with former Chief Executive Gerald Levin and outgoing Chairman Steve Case is believed to have contributed to their departures.

Earlier Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Capital Research & Management, the biggest institutional shareholder in AOL Time Warner, would oppose the reelection of Steve Case and two other directors to the company's board. See full story.

The company now faces more than 30 shareholder lawsuits and separate investigations of possible accounting fraud by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Some observers have called for a split from AOL of the Time Warner assets, which also include HBO, Time, People and Sports Illustrated Magazines, and Warner Bros. Pictures, among many others.

Analysts said Turner would become an even more vocal critic of AOL as an outsider.

Among other speculations about his plans, some observers have wondered if Turner might try to buy back CNN, the cable network that has fallen on hard times amid stiff competition from News Corp.'s Fox News Channel.

Turner himself told a gathering at a Newhouse School breakfast last month that he intends to expand his empire of bison restaurants.

He was also widely believed to be interested in taking control of three of Atlanta's sports teams -- baseball's Braves, basketball's Hawks, and hockey's Thrashers - which are currently owned by AOL. But last week, AOL entered exclusive negotiations this week to sell the Thrashers hockey and Hawks basketball teams to Dallas businessman David McDavid. See full story.

Turner became Vice Chairman of what was then Time Warner Inc. in 1995, when Time Warner agreed to buy Turner Broadcasting for $7.5 billion.

After many successful years leading an outdoor advertising firm, Turner started his television empire when he bought a struggling Atlanta UHF station in 1970. He made it into a superstation in 1976, when he beamed the station's signal to cable systems via satellite. The company's name became Turner Broadcasting in 1979. He founded the first all-news network, CNN, in 1980.

After Turner Broadcasting took on millions in debt in its 1986 purchase of MGM/UA studios, Time Warner and John Malone's Tele-Communications Inc. bailed out Turner, and took equity stakes in Turner Broadcasting.