Grant Gross
Senior Writer

AOL sells disc-making business for $1.05 billion

news
Jul 18, 20032 mins

Canadian company Cinram to but division

AOL Time Warner has reached an agreement to sell its DVD and CD manufacturing and distribution businesses to a Canadian company, Cinram International, for about $1.05 billion in cash.

The two companies expect the deal to go through late this year, pending regulatory reviews in the U.S. and other countries, said an AOL spokeswoman. As part of the deal, Cinram will have an exclusive agreement to manufacture, print and distribute CDs and DVDs for AOL’s Warner Home Video, Warner Music and New Line Cinema in North America and Europe, the spokeswoman said.

The agreement includes the sale of several AOL businesses: WEA Manufacturing, Warner Music Manufacturing Europe, Ivy Hill, Giant Merchandising and the physical distribution operations of Warner-Elektra-Atlantic (WEA). The sales and marketing operations of WEA will remain as a part of Warner Music Group.

A spokesman for Cinram, based in Scarborough, Ontario, was not available for comment.

The deal demonstrates progress in AOL’s goal of reducing its debt, said Richard Parsons, AOL Time Warner’s chairman and chief executive officer, in a statement.

Roger Ames, Warner Music Group’s chairman and CEO, in a statement called Cinram a “well-managed, international company that not only recognizes the tremendous value of these assets, but has demonstrated a commitment to quality and service.”

Grant Gross

Grant Gross, a senior writer at CIO, is a long-time IT journalist who has focused on AI, enterprise technology, and tech policy. He previously served as Washington, D.C., correspondent and later senior editor at IDG News Service. Earlier in his career, he was managing editor at Linux.com and news editor at tech careers site Techies.com. As a tech policy expert, he has appeared on C-SPAN and the giant NTN24 Spanish-language cable news network. In the distant past, he worked as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Minnesota and the Dakotas. A finalist for Best Range of Work by a Single Author for both the Eddie Awards and the Neal Awards, Grant was recently recognized with an ASBPE Regional Silver award for his article “Agentic AI: Decisive, operational AI arrives in business.”

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