Masters of the universe finally admit their failings

Ten years after he pushed Time Warner into a disastrous merger with AOL, its former chief executive Jerry Levin has finally apologised for presiding over the "worst deal of the century". His mea culpa follows an apology from another once-revered business master of the universe, Sandy Weill, who has admitted to making mistakes during his tenure as chief executive and chair of Citigroup.
 
Levin's apology comes on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the $164 billion merger between Time Warner and AOL. The deal, signed on January 10 2000, saw Levin sell off his company for AOL shares inflated by the dotcom bubble, which burst a year later. The merger was eventually reversed, but not before it had obliterated billions of dollars of shareholders' money and thousands of jobs.
 
In an interview with the American business news channel CNBC on Monday, a skinny-looking and grey-bearded Levin, now 70, acknowledged his role in the calamitous merger. "It wasn't the board. It wasn't my colleagues at Time Warner. It wasn't the bankers and lawyers."
 
He also urged other CEOs to accept responsibility for their role in the recent financial crisis. "It's time for those who are involved in companies to stand up and say: you know what, I'm solely responsible for it. I was in charge. I'm really very sorry about the pain and the suffering and loss that was caused."
 
Despite this, Levin defended the "magnificent concept" behind the AOL deal. The problem had been the execution, he said, describing the combined AOL Time Warner as "not a supermarket, [but] a mall."

Meanwhile, in a wistful profile in the New York Times on Saturday, Weill was quoted as saying he felt "incredibly sad" about Citigroup’s decline. However, while he accepted some of the blame, he was quick to pin many of the bank's woes on his former co-chief executive John Reid and his successor Charles Prince.
 
The New York Times described Weill, who left Citigroup in 2003, as someone who was "once viewed as a brilliant dealmaker". Now, however, critics cast him as "the architect of a shoddily constructed, unmanageable financial supermarket whose troubles have sideswiped investors, employees and average citizens nationwide".
 
In 2007 Weill, 76, attempted to return to Citigroup to help its recovery and defend his legacy, but the board spurned his advances. As for Levin, the former Time Warner chief executive now spends his days running a personal-healing retreat and addiction rehabilitation centre in California. Called Moonview Sanctuary, it markets itself as "a place to revel in the wonder of you". ·