The Formula 1 owner, led by chairman John Malone and CEO Greg Maffei, agreed to acquire an 86% stake in the Madrid-based commercial rights holder Dorna Sports.
Liberty Media‘s Liberty SiriusXM tracking stock group will combine with satellite radio and audio entertainment giant SiriusXM to create a new public company, dubbed “New SiriusXM”, which will continue to operate under the SiriusXM brand, the companies said on Tuesday.
Liberty Media said Tuesday that it has communicated a proposal to a special committee of the board of Sirius XM Holdings, outlining the terms of a proposed combination of the Liberty SiriusXM tracking stock group, with the satellite radio giant, led by CEO Jennifer Witz, to form a “new, consolidated public company.”
“They’re only going to get more serious over time,” Greg Maffei told an investors conference about the e-commerce giant eyeing live sports agreements, including with the NFL in the U.S. market.
Exclusives
Liberty Media has joined the bidding for the regional sports networks that Disney is trying to sell to finalize a deal with Twenty-first Century Fox, sources told CNBC. Liberty and Major League Baseball have submitted bids in the auction. Disney is selling them in order to complete its $71 billion deal to acquire Fox’s movie production and television assets, which included the regional sports networks. That deal is expected to close within weeks.
Certain lenders and noteholders of iHeart Media on Monday said John Malone’s Liberty Media proposed to buy a 40% stake in a restructured version of iHeart for $1.16 billion. The offer comes less than a month after struggling radio station owner iHeart skipped a $106 million interest payment, triggering a 30-day grace period to buy more time to restructure its $20 billion debt and avoid bankruptcy.
The Wall Street Journal reports that media mogul John Malone and his lieutenants are quietly building a cable colossus in Europe and Latin America that potentially could be the backbone for the next generation of wireless-internet service. Journal subscribers can read the full story here.
Aggressive investor John Malone could be looking to supercharge efforts by his companies to provide Spanish-language content to an underserved domestic market that is 60 million strong and growing.
More than ever, the media industry is hurtling toward greater consolidation. And consummate deal makers like John C. Malone, the 76-year-old telecommunications billionaire, are increasingly testing the waters for potential transactions.
The Liberty Media chairman is discussing buying a “significant stake” in Univision, according to The Wall Street Journal. It says the owner of the dominant Spanish-language broadcaster in the U.S., has been fielding interest from potential bidders after the media company’s initial public offering was delayed, according to people familiar with the matter. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.
French media giant Vivendi agreed to pay billionaire mogul John Malone‘s Liberty Media $775 million to settle a decade-old lawsuit related to USA Networks. The settlement, announced Friday, puts an end to the suit stemming from Vivendi’s 2001 purchase of Liberty Media’s stake in USA Networks.
His Liberty Interactive will spin off two units, while Liberty Media will reclassify its common stock into three tracking stocks.
Billionaire John Malone, fresh from helping engineer a mammoth cable TV merger between Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable, is examining ways to consolidate studios and smaller channels to better compete as the traditional TV bundle begins to unravel.
The death of the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger has sparked a private equity scramble to invest in U.S. cable systems. KKR is engaged in talks with Liberty Media boss John Malone and others to see how they can fit into the picture, sources say. Other private equity powerhouses, including TPG and Providence, are said to be making the rounds, too, according to knowledgeable sources.
John Malone’s Liberty Media Corp. has started the process of spinning off its cable assets through a stock dividend to its shareholders to form a new listed company called Liberty Broadband. Liberty Broadband, in a regulatory filing, says the stock dividend would be worth up to $4.8 billion and Malone would retain a voting interest of 47.3%.
In The Wall Street Journal, Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei talks about his company’s need to change its growth strategy, Charter’s battle with Time Warner Cable, and relations with Liberty’s controlling shareholder, chairman John Malone. WSJ subscribers can read the story here.
Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei sees upside in the cable MSO business if the heavyweights in the marketplace work together to develop new products and enhanced services.
“Grow big or go home” has been John Malone’s business plan since he was a cable system operator in Denver in the 1970s. Today Malone, 72, is at the center of a consolidation effort that would combat ever-increasing programming costs, as well as compete more efficiently with new providers like Netflix.
The Wall Street Journal reports on how John Malone, the original cable guy, has sidled back into the industry he helped create decades earlier. In March, his Liberty Media bought a 27% stake in Charter Communications, a midsize operator with a laggard history. Malone announced the time was ripe for consolidation. That’s all it took. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.
John C. Malone, the chairman of Liberty Media, is working behind the scenes to gain control of Time Warner Cable, seeking a second act in an industry he once dominated.
John Malone’s Liberty Media Corp. has paid Comcast Corp. $417 million in cash to buy back shares in Liberty Media that Comcast held.
Cable cowboy John Malone is just starting to think about hanging up his spurs. While the Liberty Media chairman has no plans to retire any time soon, he has told colleagues recently that he wants to put in place a succession plan for when he eventually steps aside, according to sources familiar with the talks. The 73-year-old billionaire oversees a far-flung media empire with investments spanning cable, satellite radio and music.
Liberty Media Corp. won a judge’s order for a €765 million ($999 million) judgment in its lawsuit against Vivendi SA with interest starting in December 2001, following a jury award last year. U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan approved the judgment and interest using the average rate of return on one-year Treasury bills compounded annually, according to a court filing yesterday.
This year promises to be especially busy for Liberty Media as the tight-lipped company and its chairman John Malone snap up and spin off companies at a dizzying pace. On Thursday, the FCC granted approval for a so-called “de jure” transfer of control of SiriusXM Satellite Radio to Liberty.
Liberty Media has started sending out feelers to potential buyers for its premium channel Starz. Liberty has reached out to media companies ahead of the expected mid-January spinoff of its pay TV division, which includes the Starz and Encore channels, sources say.
The move will give investors a better view of how Starz is doing, improve its capital structure and create two “currencies” in the form of shares that can be used for acquisitions, said Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei.
A federal jury awarded $956 million to Liberty Media in a deal involving the USA Networks, saying Vivendi deceived it with rosy statements.
Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway increased its exposure to media companies significantly in the fourth quarter, adding a new position in Liberty Media and substantially raising its stake in DirecTV, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
Nexstar Buy Of Liberty Stations Gets FCC OK
In granting Nexstar’s purchase of WFRV Green Bay, Wis., and WJMN Escanba, Mich., from Liberty Media, the FCC also extended a waiver of “main studio” rule for WJMN.
WFRV-WJMN’s Perry Kidder Calling It Quits
The longtime GM of the CBS affiliates in Green Bay, Wis., and Marquette, Mich., is retiring upon the completion of the sale of the stations this summer to Nexstar Broadcasting. Nexstar announced it was buying the stations from Liberty Media last month for $20 million.
Nexstar Buys Two CBS Affils For $20 Million
The Dallas-based station group is adding WFRV Green Bay-Appleton, Wis., and WJMN Marquette, Mich., to its already bulging station portfolio. CBS Perry Sook says the price is less than five times projected 2010-11 cash flow, which he believes he can grow by being more agressive on retrans and through “synergistic operating improvements.”
Barry Diller is stepping down as CEO of IAC — and he’s getting a divorce from John Malone after a long, often tumultous marriage. Diller announced today that he has relinquished his post at the New York-based digital media company, part of a complicated deal that will see Liberty Media, one of IAC’s biggest stakeholders, exit the business.
