AOL Purchases Time Warner
On January 10, 2000, AOL announced its plans to buy Time Warner. At a purchase price of $182 billion in stock and debt, this purchase was the largest merger in the history of the corporate world. During that time, Time Warner was the biggest media/entertainment company. The merger wasn’t a success because of a pretty common reason – inaccurate expectations (or as ABC called it, “corporate culture clash”). AOL thought that it would get the cable customers of Time Warner, who thought the merger would give it millions of subscribers. Neither expectation was met in reality.
AOL Purchases Time Warner
Italian Carrara Marble Troubles
Initially named the Standard Oil Building (AKA “Big Stan”), Chicago’s Aon Center was constructed in 1974 and had a really unique feature – 43,000 Carrara marble slabs from Italy sheathed the building completely. Since the marble was thinner compared to the usual marble used to clad buildings, the cladding of the Aon Center started to fail right away. Even during construction, a 350-pound slab came off the façade, smashing into the roof of the nearby Prudential Center. Twelve years later, inspectors discovered that the cladding had dangerous cracks. The entire building had to be renovated using granite for $80 million and took two years to fix.
Italian Carrara Marble Troubles
