Greg Maffei
by Dennis “Cos” Costa
Liberty Media Corporation (NASDAQ:LCAPA, LNTA, LSTZA) will release its first quarter earnings on Friday, May 7 at 12:00 PM EST. Liberty Media’s President and CEO, Greg Maffei, will be hosting the call and will discuss the company’s financial results, and may make observations of the company’s outlook.
It is Mr. Maffei’s observations of the company’s outlook, specifically as it relates to its ownership stake in Sirius XM (NASDAQ:SIRI), that will have SIRI investors paying particular attention to his upcoming comments. Since February 2009, when Liberty Media Corp Chairman, John Malone, agreed to throw a lifeline of $580M to cash strapped Sirius XM, there has been much speculation regarding the company’s future intentions.
The investment by Malone in the form of high interest notes have been paid back in full by Sirius XM, leaving Liberty a beneficial ownership position of 40%, as the holder of 12.5M shares of Sirius XM Preferred B-1 stock. The value today of that ownership position, with Sirius XM stock trading at $1.12 per share, is ~$2.9B.
Along with ownership rights, Liberty also received Board of Director (BOD) Seats proportional to the company’s ownership position. Currently, Liberty has three Preferred Stock Director’s on the board. They are John Malone, David J.A. Flowers, and Greg Maffei, who is hosting the Liberty earnings call event. With these BOD seats, Liberty possesses a direct say in board decisions of Sirius XM. Currently, as outlined in Sirius XM’s Definitive Proxy Statement for the upcoming Annual Shareholder meeting, there preferred shares are equal to 2.587B common shares, with the voting rights assigned them.
It is the speculation of future events, and the beneficial ownership held by Liberty Media, that create the interest for shareholders of Sirius XM Radio to pay particular attention to this call. To hear the call live, interested parties can go to the website below.
Position: Long SIRI, None LCAPA
Contact the Author: denniscosta@satelliteradioplayground.com
I just saw a movie on Sunset Blvd. about naked short selling and all this Wall Street corruption and the audience was pretty shocked. It was the same story told through the eyes of Sirus XM investors that nearly went broke because of NSS. The movie was called “Stock Shock” and is now sold on DVD just about everywhere. PS-DVD is cheaper at http://www.stockshockmovie.com
Nice read Cos. I was looking forward to this CC hoping to get some favorable comments from Maffei, Malone and/or Flowers. Unfortunately, I am afraid the current international economic chaos and market turmoil will mitigate any other news…
will you be able to write up a summary of the call for those of us who couldn’t listen to it?
tia