Liberty Media Corp. proposed splitting off the business that houses SiriusXM and combining it with the rest of Sirius XM Holdings Inc., the latest reshuffling of billionaire John Malone’s sprawling business empire.
(Bloomberg) — Liberty Media Corp. proposed splitting off the business that houses SiriusXM and combining it with the rest of Sirius XM Holdings Inc., the latest reshuffling of billionaire John Malone’s sprawling business empire.
Liberty already owns about 83% of SiriusXM, the audio entertainment company that includes the Pandora music streaming platform and satellite radio. Liberty’s Sirius XM shares are held in a tracking stock.
“Liberty’s proposal rationalizes the dual corporate structure between LSXM and SiriusXM,” Chief Executive Officer Greg Maffei said in a statement Tuesday. “SiriusXM minority shareholders will also benefit from enhanced trading dynamics, including increased liquidity and likelihood of future index inclusion.”
SiriusXM shares fell as much as 13% in New York trading, its biggest decline in two months, while Liberty’s tracking stock rose 5.5%.
Malone has wide ranging investments in media, communications and entertainment assets, including Warner Bros Discovery Inc., concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and various sports franchises, like the Formula One racing circuit. Earlier this year, Liberty completed its split-off of the Atlanta Braves baseball team into a separate, publicly traded company.
The combination had been long expected by analysts.
“Agreeing to a deal will remove a key overhang and should benefit SIRI shareholders longer term via a cleaner structure and index inclusion,” analysts at Wells Fargo wrote in a note to investors.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Geetha Ranganathan said the idea behind the combination was to narrow the discount between SiriusXM and the tracking stock, which typically had traded at a 35% discount.
Read more: Liberty Media Shakes Structure Up Again With New Tracking Stocks
Sirius XM said it had received Liberty’s offer and said it is “evaluating the proposal.”
Liberty said it would seek to separate Liberty SiriusXM through a redemptive split-off of a newly formed subsidiary of Liberty, which would own all of the assets and liabilities attributed to the current tracking stock.
Current shareholders of the tracking stock would receive shares in the new company, according to the release. The minority shareholders of SiriusXM would own about 16% of the new unit and former shareholders of the Liberty SiriusXM tracking stock would own about 84% of the combined company.
Minority shareholders of SiriusXM would receive 1 share of New SiriusXM common stock and 55 cents in cash for each of their shares.
–With assistance from Felix Gillette and Gerry Smith.
(Updates with response from Sirius XM; opening share trading.)
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