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Friday, January 18, 2013

Liberty Media takes majority control of Sirius XM satellite radio, (NASDAQ: SIRI)

Liberty Media Corp has taken majority ownership of Sirius XM Radio Inc, a securities filing showed, after months of trying to wrest control of the satellite radio broadcaster. John Malone's Liberty Media bought another 50 million shares of Sirius stock at an average price of $3.15 per share, according to a company filing made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday.After that purchase, Liberty owns about 1.9 billion shares of Sirius XM's common stock. It also separately owns about 1.29 billion preferred shares. Including the convertible preferred shares, Liberty Media holds about 50.7 percent of Sirius XM's outstanding common stock.Liberty has been trying for months to take control of Sirius. In January, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave Liberty Media permission to do so.Malone's firm wanted control of Sirius because it believed Mel Karmazin, who left as CEO of Sirius in December, did not adapt quickly enough to changing technologies.

Sirius XM Radio Inc. broadcasts its music, sports, entertainment, comedy, talk, news, traffic and weather channels in the United States on a subscription fee basis through its two satellite radio systems. Shares of SIRI traded higher by 0.8% or $0.025/share to $3.14. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $1.78 and as high as $3.19. On average, 73882304 shares of SIRI exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 38342360.



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