Liberty Media
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The Liberty Media Corporation is an American media conglomerate. Control is exercised by engineer Dr. John Malone, with a majority of the voting shares.
In May 2006, Liberty shareholders approved the creation of two new tracking stocks:[1]
- Liberty Interactive Group (NASDAQ: LINTA,NASDAQ: LINTB)
- Liberty Capital (NASDAQ: LCAPA, NASDAQ: LCAPB)
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[edit] Liberty Interactive Group
Liberty Interactive Group's subsidiaries include:
- QVC, Inc.
- Provide Commerce
Liberty Interactive Group's interests include:
- Expedia, Inc.
- IAC/InterActiveCorp
- OpenTV
[edit] Liberty Capital
Liberty Capital includes:
- 20% interest in News Corporation[2]
- 4.1 percent of Time Warner[3]
Liberty's other private and public assets include
- Starz! including Starz Media
- Encore
- GSN (50% stake with Sony Pictures).
On May 2006, Liberty Media bought IDT Entertainment from IDT Corporation and renamed it Starz Media.
[edit] History
It originated as part of TCI, an American cable television group, and acquired by AT&T ('Ma Bell') in 1999 for $54 billion.
It was spun-off from AT&T in the second half of 2001, subsequently spending $5 billion on nine German regional cable networks. Apart from television distribution it holds major interests in other groups. For example it is the largest shareholder in News Corporation (though the founding Murdoch family owns more voting shares), and has a 4 % stake in Time Warner. As of December 2003 it has never paid a dividend.
In May 2006, Time Warner acquired Liberty Media's 50% stake in Court TV for $735 million.[4]
On May 16, 2006, IDT sold its IDT Entertainment division to Liberty Media for "for all of Liberty Media's interests in IDT, $186 million in cash and the assumption of existing indebtedness." IDT Entertainment's assets and Starz Entertainment Group's popular line of premium TV channels will combine to produce content for all distribution platforms. [5]
[edit] Governance
Members of the board of Liberty Media are: Robert Bennett, Donne Fisher, Paul Gould, Gregory Maffei, John Malone, David Rapley, LaVoy Robison, and Larry Romrell.
