Time Warner Won't Raise Bid For TradeDoublerTime Warner Won't Raise Bid For TradeDoubler

Time Warner doesn't intend to raise its $900 million bid for TradeDoubler, despite its offer being rejected by a major shareholder of the Swedish online advertising company.

Time Warner's offer, which represents a 9% premium over TradeDoubler's closing share price on Friday, was announced Monday. The entertainment company plans to merge TradeDoubler with Advertising.com, AOL's third-party advertising network. AOL is a unit of Time Warner.

Despite acceptance by TradeDoubler's board, pension-fund manager Alecta, the company's largest shareholder, has rejected the deal. Alecta owns 10.01% of TradeDoubler shares.

Nevertheless, a spokesman for AOL said Tuesday, "We do not intend to raise our bid. We believe we offered a full and fair price and our offer represents a good value for shareholders."

A condition of the bid is that Time Warner would become the owner of at least 90% of TradeDoubler shares. While Time Warner still believes it can meet that condition, "we have the option of revising that as well," the AOL spokesman said, acknowledging that it would be a "more difficult and lengthy process" under Swedish law.

In announcing the deal on Monday, Jeff Bewkes, president and chief operating officer of Time Warner, said TradeDoubler would help AOL grow its business faster in Europe's online advertising market. "With AOL and Advertising.com, we have built a robust online advertising business in Europe, and TradeDoubler will help us accelerate the growth of this business," Bewkes said in a statement.

TradeDoubler shareholders have four weeks to approve the deal, but Time Warner could extend the acceptance period.