Ted Turner leaves Time Warner

Albert Frere, the godfather of Belgian business, once said "A small minority shareholder is a little sucker. A big minority shareholder is a big sucker". Ted Turner, who sold his controlling stake in CNN for a minority one in Time Warner, had ample time to ponder this, as he watched, no doubt with dismay, the masterful way in which Steve Case hoodwinked Gerald Levin into merging with AOL on AOL's terms.

The story of what probably rates as one of the greatest con jobs in the last century is breathtaking. People like Levin do not rise to the top of a Fortune 500 corporation by being chumps, which makes even more remarkable the ease with which Case convinced him to sell his valuable company for an inflated dot-com pyramid scheme like AOL.

Even though Time Warner/AOL's shares slumped by half afterwards, Case succeeded in his objective, to lock in at least half the stratospheric valuation of his stake in AOL, something he could not have done using hedges alone given the amounts in play.

The surprising thing is that Ted Turner didn't have the same foresight, and thus lost half his wealth when Time Warner's stock tanked after being diluted with AOL's worthless stock.