Richard Parsons, the chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, is set to announce that he will hand over the chief executive role at the group to Jeff Bewkes, his longtime No 2.

The announcement of the end of his 5½year tenure could come as soon as next week, after the matter was discussed at a board meeting in London on Wednesday and Thursday. It was the first board meeting to have been held outside the United States during Mr Parsons’s reign.

Technically, no final decision was taken by the board - otherwise Time Warner would have had to make an immediate disclosure – but it is an open secret at the New York-based group that the handover is coming soon. Mr Parsons’s contract formally expires in May next year and it is not clear if that date will be honoured precisely. He is likely to continue as chairman for a short period after May while Mr Bewkes settles in.

Mr Parsons held only the chief executive’s position until the enforced departure of Steve Case, the company chairman, in 2003.

The handover is widely expected to be followed by a review of strategy, because Mr Bewkes is felt to be less wedded to Time Warner’s existing corporate structure, which makes it the largest traditional, content-producing media group in the world. Mr Parsons held Time Warner together during a difficult period after its merger with AOL and he maintained the conglomerate structure of the group despite pressure from Carl Icahn, the corporate raider. The share price – $17.72 yesterday morning – is little-changed from the $17 to $19 range at which it sat in the chief executive’s first month in charge in May 2002.

Mr Bewkes is described as far less sentimental and could preside over a sale or spin-off of the still-struggling AOL and its majority-owned cable division, which the company has no intention of replicating internationally. With no family or controlling shareholder, the company has to contend with sentiment on Wall Street.

Mr Bewkes is credited with pressing for Time Warner to leave the music business, a personal favourite of Mr Parsons, who initially pursued a merger with EMI, the British company, before relenting and selling the operation to Edgar Bronfman.

He ran HBO, the cable television network behind Six Feet Under and The Sopranos, before being promoted to act as one of Mr Parsons’s deputies in 2002, becoming president and chief operating officer in 2005.

Time Warner’s business is grouped in five divisions, ranging from the Warner Brothers and New Line film studios to the Time Inc magazine division, with television networks such as Turner Broadcasting, AOL and cable networks completing the set. It earned $2.27 billion in the first half, on revenues of $22.16 billion.

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