AOL chairman under growing pressure to resign

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Investors are intensifying calls for the removal of AOL Time Warner's chairman Steve Case, the main architect of the mega-merger that created the company but which has failed to live up to its promise.

Removing the co-founder of America Online from his role as chairman at the world's largest media company, however, will be difficult and may take some time, investors and analysts said. An AOL spokeswoman denied that Mr Case was exiting. "There is no basis to this rumour. Steve Case is not leaving the company," Tricia Primrose said.

Mr Case helped engineer AOL's $106bn (£69bn) takeover of Time Warner, which had four times the internet company's revenue, for AOL stock at the peak of the dot.com boom. But the deal has come under growing fire amid the 70 per cent slide in AOL's stock since the merger was completed in January 2001.

"I would like to see Steve Case resign or be forced to resign," Hal Vogel, a veteran media fund manager on Wall Street said. The New York Times, citing sources close to the board, said directors from the Time Warner side were seeking Mr Case's resignation and outspoken director and the company's largest individual shareholder, Ted Turner, also now supports removal.

However, under the merger terms Mr Case negotiated a deal whereby a three-quarters vote of the 14-person board was necessary to oust him. Industry insiders said Mr Case has the support of at least two of his close friends on the board.