Some analysts believed that Time Warner was preparing to shed parts of the company that had held down share value, namely its cable business. But the company maintains that the restructuring neither advances nor sidetracks a promise it made to analysts in February to spin off its cable operation into a self-financing unit that would also absorb much of Time Warner's debt. Wall Street has valued Time Warner's stock in part because of a distaste for the capital-intensive cable business, which has drained cash flow.