Liberty Posted August 5, 2013 Share Posted August 5, 2013 "Cox Communications President Pat Esser threw cold water on a report saying the No. 3 U.S. cable operator has held talks over merging with Charter Communications (CHTR), according to a person familiar with the matter. Esser is said to have told employees in an internal memo he has had no conversations with Charter or a key shareholder over a potential tie-up." http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2013/08/05/cox-president-said-to-dismiss-report-on-charter-merger-talks/ Guess that's why Charter is dropping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 LMCA Q2: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8ZW/2591106549x0x682257/86e4cc84-93c6-4622-a948-6d7a7229bc14/LMCA_News_2013_8_6_General_Releases.pdf LMCA CC is at 12:15 PM today. Charter Q2: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=112298&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1844970&highlight= CHTR conference call is at 10 AM today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted August 7, 2013 Share Posted August 7, 2013 Live Nation Q2: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=194146&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1845295&highlight=#.UgJO5GQnzd4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted August 24, 2013 Share Posted August 24, 2013 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-23/cablevision-clock-ticking-as-paulson-sees-sale-real-m-a.html More m&a speculation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 And even more speculation... This time about using part of their SIRI stake to raise funds for a cable acquisition. http://www.kpinsider.com/161814/liberty-media-corp-nasdaqlmca-may-fund-cable-buy-using-sirius-xm-radio-inc-nasdaqsiri-stake.html Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCA), which reportedly has been eyeing cable targets for Charter Communications (CHTR), could get funds for such an acquisition by selling a portion of its stake in Sirius XM Radio Inc (NASDAQ:SIRI), analysts at Macquarie Capital said. In a research note sent to clients on Thursday, analysts Amy Yong and Andrew DeGasperi also raised their price target for Liberty Media to $155 from $150. Liberty Media Chairman John Malone is said to be looking into ways Charter, the fourth-largest U.S. cable provider, can acquire a rival cable company like Time Warner Cable Inc (NYSE:TWC) or Cablevision (CVC). Charter has gone as far as hiring Goldman Sachs to pursue a bid for Time Warner Cable, which rejected initial takeover overtures from Malone. In March, Liberty Media announced a deal to acquire a 27.3% stake in Charter. Earlier this year, Charter agreed to buy Cablevision’s western U.S. cable systems, Optimum West, for roughly $1.6 billion in cash. The Macquarie analysts said they expect Liberty Media to consider using its Sirius XM stake as a source of funds, as it looks for growth opportunities including cable consolidation. Sirius XM’s buyback helped boost Liberty Media’s stake to 53%. The company will likely sell down to 50% and therefore recoup the $1.7 billion it paid to bring its ownership from 46% to 50%, Macquarie said. The note added that Liberty could also take out margin loans against Sirius XM stock to fund future Charter investments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giofranchi Posted September 17, 2013 Share Posted September 17, 2013 A recent report on LMCA (by ZACKS Investment Research) giofranchizrLMCA1.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted September 17, 2013 Share Posted September 17, 2013 A recent report on LMCA (by ZACKS Investment Research) giofranchi Thanks Gio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted September 26, 2013 Share Posted September 26, 2013 NEW YORK, Sept. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) announced today that, on October 25, 2013, it will redeem all of its outstanding 7.625% Senior Notes due 2018 (CUSIP Nos. 98375YAZ9 and U98408AF1). As of September 25, 2013, $539,551,000 of the 7.625% Notes remains outstanding. SiriusXM intends to use the proceeds from the issuance of $650,000,000 aggregate principal amount of its 5.875% Senior Notes due 2020 to fund the redemption. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-25/malone-says-reaching-time-warner-cable-deal-still-makes-sense.html Billionaire John Malone, the cable-industry pioneer and largest investor in Charter Communications Inc., is still aiming to convince Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) that teaming up is in both companies’ best interests. Consolidation makes sense because cable operators need to stay competitive with satellite-TV companies, Malone said in an interview at the Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Communacopia Conference in New York. So far, efforts to persuade Time Warner Cable to join forces with Charter have proved fruitless, according to people familiar with the discussions. Malone’s dealings with Time Warner Cable are being handled by his holding company Liberty Media Corp. (LMCA), which is run by Chief Executive Officer Greg Maffei. The billionaire is letting Maffei manage any potential deal process, which Malone doesn’t expect to become hostile, he said. “I’m not involved in those discussions,” said Malone, 72. “I’m an investor and a philosopher these days.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted October 3, 2013 Share Posted October 3, 2013 http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/09/27/226891181/episode-488-the-secret-history-of-your-cable-bill Good planet Money episode on cable billing and bundling. Doesn't go very in depth, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giofranchi Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 Liberty Media Corporation Announces Repurchase of 5.2% of Outstanding LMC Shares, $500 Million Repurchase Agreement with SiriusXM and Proposed Private Offering of $500 Million of Cash Convertible Senior Notes ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Liberty Media Corporation ("Liberty Media") (Nasdaq: LMCA, LMCB) announced today the following transactions: • Repurchase of 5.2% of outstanding Liberty Media common stock from Comcast Corporation • Agreement with SiriusXM to repurchase $500 million of SIRI shares from Liberty Media • Proposed private offering of $500 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes (with initial purchaser option to purchase an additional $75 million aggregate principal amount) due 2023 Repurchase from Comcast Liberty Media and Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) recently completed a transaction in which a subsidiary of Comcast exchanged approximately 6.3 million shares of LMCA for a newly created subsidiary of Liberty Media which holds Leisure Arts, Inc., approximately $417 million in cash and Liberty Media's rights in and to a revenue sharing agreement relating to the carriage of CNBC. The exchange is intended to be tax-free. Sirius XM Repurchase Sirius XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) ("Sirius") has agreed to repurchase $500 million of its common stock from Liberty Media as part of Sirius' share repurchase program, which it announced today has been increased by an additional $2 billion. Liberty Media expects to continue to own over 52% of the outstanding SIRI shares after giving effect to the repurchase. The price per share will equal a 1.5% discount to the average of the daily volume weighted average price ("VWAP") per share of SIRI for the ten-day period beginning on the third trading day following the date of the public release of Sirius' third quarter 2013 earnings subject to a cap on the average VWAP of $4.18 and a floor on the average VWAP of $3.64. The shares are expected to be purchased in three installments, of which $130 million will be repurchased in November 2013, $270 million will be repurchased in January 2014 and $100 million will be repurchased in April 2014, with the specific number of shares to be purchased on each repurchase date equal to the dollar amount of the shares to be repurchased on that date divided by the per share price. On any of these repurchase dates (subject to certain limitations), Sirius may be required to accelerate the purchase and sale of the shares to be purchased on the next scheduled repurchase date if Sirius is able to draw upon its existing senior credit facility an amount that would be sufficient to pay the repurchase price of the shares to be purchased on such repurchase date and the next scheduled repurchase date. Sirius' obligations to repurchase shares on the repurchase dates are subject to certain conditions, including, among other things, (i) no default or event of default under any of its debt instruments or any other agreement resulting from the purchase of shares on such date and (ii) Sirius having the availability under, and being able to draw on, its existing senior secured revolving credit facility in an amount sufficient to pay the repurchase price of such shares. In the event any of the applicable conditions are not satisfied on or prior to a repurchase date, Sirius will have no obligation to take any actions that would require it to incur any costs or expenses (other than de minimis costs and expenses) to remedy the failure of any of the foregoing conditions, including taking actions to avoid having such repurchase result in a default under any of their debt instruments or any of their other agreements. To the extent Sirius is unable to purchase all of the applicable shares on any repurchase date due to the failure of any condition, Sirius shall instead repurchase on such repurchase date the maximum number of shares that would not result in a failure of any of the conditions and, subject to satisfying such conditions, purchase the excess of those shares not so purchased (the "excess shares") on the next subsequent repurchase date, along with the shares scheduled to be purchased on such repurchase date. If Sirius is unable to purchase all shares subject to purchase on April 25, 2014 (including all excess shares) due to a failure of any conditions, then Liberty Media will have the option to (a) sell to Sirius the maximum number of shares that Sirius is able to purchase and satisfy the conditions, and either (x) terminate the repurchase agreement immediately following such repurchase date or (y) extend the outside date for a period of 90 days and require Sirius to purchase the excess shares on a subsequent repurchase date mutually agreed by the parties prior to the outside date as extended, subject to satisfying the foregoing conditions, or (b) terminate the repurchase agreement without selling the applicable shares on such final repurchase date. Sirius has also agreed, until the final repurchase date, not to take (a) any action outside of the ordinary course of business, consistent with past practice, or (b) any action within its control resulting in a significant deviation (in either amount or timing) from its budget, in each case that would reasonably be likely to result in a failure of the conditions listed in clauses (i) and (ii) of the forgoing paragraph, unless approved by its board of directors. Proposed Private Offering of Cash Convertible Senior Notes Liberty Media announced today a private offering, subject to market and other conditions, of $500 million aggregate principal amount of cash convertible senior notes due 2023. Liberty Media expects to grant to the initial purchasers an option to purchase additional notes with an aggregate principal amount of up to $75 million. The notes will be convertible, under certain circumstances, into cash based on the conversion value of the underlying shares of Liberty Media's Series A common stock. All conversions of the notes will be settled solely in cash, and not through the delivery of any securities. The interest rate, conversion rate and other terms of the notes will be determined by negotiations between Liberty Media and the initial purchasers of the notes. Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, Barclays Capital Inc., BNP Paribas Securities Corp, Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc., Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., RBC Capital Markets, LLC, RBS Securities Inc. and Wells Fargo Securities, LLC are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. In connection with the offering of the notes, Liberty Media expects to enter into privately negotiated cash convertible note hedge and warrant transactions with counterparties that may include one or more of the initial purchasers (and/or their respective affiliates). The cash convertible note hedge will be settled solely in cash. The sold warrants will be net share settled unless a cash settlement election is made. In connection with establishing their initial hedge of the cash convertible note hedge and warrant transactions, the counterparties to those transactions and/or their affiliates expect to enter into various derivative transactions with respect to Liberty Media's Series A common stock and/or purchase shares of Liberty Media's Series A common stock in privately negotiated transactions and/or open market transactions concurrently with or shortly after the pricing of the notes. These activities could have the effect of increasing or preventing a decline in the price of the notes and/or Liberty Media's Series A common stock at that time. The counterparties and/or their affiliates are also likely to modify their hedge positions from time to time following the pricing of the notes by entering into or unwinding various derivatives with respect to Liberty Media's Series A common stock and/or purchasing or selling in secondary market transactions Liberty Media's stock or other securities or instruments that they may wish to use in connection with such hedging, including the notes. In addition, Liberty Media intends to exercise options it holds under the cash convertible note hedge transactions whenever notes are converted. In order to unwind their hedge positions with respect to those exercised options, the counterparties and/or their respective affiliates may sell shares of Liberty Media's Series A common stock or other securities or instruments of Liberty Media, including the notes, in secondary market transactions or unwind various derivative transactions with respect to Liberty Media's Series A common stock, including during the period immediately prior to maturity of the notes in connection with potential conversions of the notes (and are likely to do so during any cash settlement averaging period for the converted notes). These unwind activities could have the effect of decreasing the trading price of Liberty Media's Series A common stock. Liberty Media expects to use the net proceeds from the notes offering, together with the proceeds from the sale of the warrants to fund the hedge transaction and to pay down a portion of its outstanding margin loans, with the remaining net proceeds expected to be used for general corporate purposes. The notes have not been registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws and, unless so registered, may not be offered or sold in the United States except pursuant to an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act and applicable state securities laws. The notes are being offered by means of an offering memorandum and sold solely to "Qualified Institutional Buyers" pursuant to, and as that term is defined in, Rule 144A of the Securities Act. giofranchi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 Seems like a good move, if I'm following everything properly. Basically, LMCA sold $500 of its SIRI shares back to SIRI. Then they functionally turned around and gave $417m of that money along with some non-core assets to Comcast to repurchase 5.2% of LMCA, worth ±$925m at today's price. My brain hurts when I try to think of the per LMCA share effect of this; SIRI is reducing share count as is LMCA, so the per share interest in SIRI and CHTR went up because they more or less swapped the non-core assets for more concentration into what they already owned, but I'm not sure by what % things changed. If both LMCA and SIRI are buying back under IV (which is very probable, considering Malone's track record), it's all very good. The new debt seems to be about pushing back maturities on the current debt, though you never know what these guys could do with the money... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valueorama Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 It seems like there is a cap on how much LMCA can own SIRI. LMCA is trying to maintain 50% of SIRI. Hence LMCA is selling to SIRI. In the same vein, LINTA is spliting into two tracking stock. LVNTA is spining off Tripadvisor. Lots of moving parts. http://www.nasdaq.com/article/liberty-interactive-to-reshuffle-tracking-stocks-20131010-00680 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 It seems like there is a cap on how much LMCA can own SIRI. LMCA is trying to maintain 50% of SIRI. Hence LMCA is selling to SIRI. Have you seen that anywhere? AFAIK there's no cap. It seems more like a capital allocation decision; they want a majority of shares to maintain hard control, and anything above that can be opportunistically sold to be used elsewhere. That was my take anyway, but now you've made me question it. A quick search didn't reveal anything about a cap. If anyone knows for sure, please let me know. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ItsAValueTrap Posted October 10, 2013 Author Share Posted October 10, 2013 By selling the SIRI shares, Liberty can deploy the money into better opportunities. SIRI's valuation is a little high. Liberty can invest in share repurchases, companies like Charter, etc. etc. instead. It should see a slightly higher return from doing that than by holding onto its SIRI shares. 2- The LVNTA and LINTA splits will make my head hurt. I'm guessing that you want to buy the complicated parts and the parts where Malone has higher ownership (so you should probably buy LMCA instead of LVTNA). I don't understand why LVTNA is trading so high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 By selling the SIRI shares, Liberty can deploy the money into better opportunities. SIRI's valuation is a little high. Malone doesn't seem to think that SIRI's valuation is too high, though. Otherwise I think he'd stop the buybacks there, or do a special dividend if he wanted to take some money out. And by buying back LMCA, he's basically buying lots of SIRI since most of LMCA is SIRI. He probably feels IV is high because of the high operational leverage (once your satellites are up and you've paid for your content, it costs pretty much the same to serve 25 or 50 or 75 million customers) and moat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 http://qz.com/134132/moguls-plan-to-kill-netflix-unite-cable-companies-to-build-a-competitor/ Nothing new. Malone still trying to convince the cable cos to consolidate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubris Posted October 13, 2013 Share Posted October 13, 2013 Ok why is buy seasons being re-allocated from Liberty Interactive to Liberty Venture and therefore Liberty Trip Holdings? Why is this being separated from the e-commerce business since it is essentially from the same category? Why is Malone going through trouble of extracting it? Trip holdings is also the least attractive part of Ventures. Is Malone trying to emphasize the original investments in Ventures? Is there a way for him to monetize the trip holdings given the huge capital gains tax the position has incurred? These are just some of the questions following the call. I'm sure QVC will have much more aggressive share repurchases though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 Unbundling coming to Canada? US next? http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/13/canada-politics-idUSL1N0I30BW20131013 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ajc Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 Thoughts from The Brooklyn Investor on the Liberty Media 2013 investor day presentations So Liberty Media (LMCA) had their investor day last week. I wasn't there but the investor day webcast is available with a slide presentation at the LMCA website. There was some fun stuff in the beginning (with a disturbing slide of Greg Maffei doing some sort of dance) and then Maffei (LMCA), Meyer (Sirius XM), Rutledge (Charter) and Rapino (Live Nation) did presentations on their businesses. Anyway, I will cut and paste a whole bunch of stuff from the presentation as it's easier to do that than to type stuff up myself. This will be sort of a summary, but not a complete summary. This is sort of a note to myself so I will add thoughts along the way. Maybe it will be helpful for people who don't want to sit down for two hours to listen to the webcast... http://brooklyninvestor.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/liberty-media-investor-day-2013.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cunninghamew Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 Thoughts from The Brooklyn Investor on the Liberty Media 2013 investor day presentations So Liberty Media (LMCA) had their investor day last week. I wasn't there but the investor day webcast is available with a slide presentation at the LMCA website. There was some fun stuff in the beginning (with a disturbing slide of Greg Maffei doing some sort of dance) and then Maffei (LMCA), Meyer (Sirius XM), Rutledge (Charter) and Rapino (Live Nation) did presentations on their businesses. Anyway, I will cut and paste a whole bunch of stuff from the presentation as it's easier to do that than to type stuff up myself. This will be sort of a summary, but not a complete summary. This is sort of a note to myself so I will add thoughts along the way. Maybe it will be helpful for people who don't want to sit down for two hours to listen to the webcast... http://brooklyninvestor.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/liberty-media-investor-day-2013.html Thanks ajc... the link is a good read for those that have not looked at it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 Good summary by BI. I've listened to the event, and it's very good. Worth a listen if you are curious about these businesses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted October 24, 2013 Share Posted October 24, 2013 http://investor.siriusxm.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=799681 SiriusXM Reports Third Quarter 2013 Results -- Record Revenue of $962 Million, Up 11% From Third Quarter of 2012 -- Net Income of $63 Million -- Adjusted EBITDA Grows 21% to a Record $296 Million -- Free Cash Flow Increases 26% to $245 Million -- Share Repurchase Program Reaches $1.6 Billion Year to Date -- Stock down, which is good for the big buybacks they're doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 Mr. Market seems to be really missing the point on SIRI (down another 5%). Subscribers are up significantly, free cash flow is up 26%, average cost of debt is down from over 9% to 5.5%, revenues are up and guidance for the next year is up, big buybacks are taking place.. But they missed the analysts' net income target (which isn't the best metric for this company -- all Malone companies like to show little net income), so all hell breaks loose. Oh well, as I said, that's great for buybacks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay21 Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 Seems like a good move, if I'm following everything properly. Basically, LMCA sold $500 of its SIRI shares back to SIRI. Then they functionally turned around and gave $417m of that money along with some non-core assets to Comcast to repurchase 5.2% of LMCA, worth ±$925m at today's price. My brain hurts when I try to think of the per LMCA share effect of this; SIRI is reducing share count as is LMCA, so the per share interest in SIRI and CHTR went up because they more or less swapped the non-core assets for more concentration into what they already owned, but I'm not sure by what % things changed. If both LMCA and SIRI are buying back under IV (which is very probable, considering Malone's track record), it's all very good. The new debt seems to be about pushing back maturities on the current debt, though you never know what these guys could do with the money... Has anyone seen a pro forma balance sheet for these transactions? Maybe I'll try to track down the notes prosup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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