THE chairman and chief executive of Time Warner insisted last night that “no one” could run the world’s biggest media group better, as the company beat analysts’ forecasts with a 23 per cent rise in fourth-quarter net profits to $1.4 billion (£790 million).

Dick Parsons was bullish, despite the recent campaign by Carl Icahn, the activist shareholder, to take control of Time Warner. “If I can be allowed one moment of immodesty — no one can run these businesses better than the current management is running them,” Mr Parsons told analysts.

The world’s largest media company, which owns Warner Bros, CNN and AOL, said that films such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire had provided the fastest sales growth in six quarters. Revenue rose by 7 per cent to $11.9 billion.

Shares in Time Warner rose by almost 3 per cent last night.

Mr Icahn has accumulated about 3 per cent of Time Warner’s stock. His partners will present their plan for how they hope to reconfigure the company next Tuesday.

Time Warner, which said that it had seen strong growth in high-speed internet and digital phone services, said that earnings this year should increase at a high single-digit percentage rate, in line with analysts’ expectations.

The latest Harry Potter film grossed $284.4 million at the US box office. Other successes for Warner Bros included Batman Begins and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, whose DVD releases boosted fourth-quarter sales, and Wedding Crashers, a surprise hit from New Line Cinema.

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