LCAPB Archive

17

Liberty Washes Hands of Cooperative Agreement with Worldspace in its Bankruptcy

By
Andrew Montero
– March 17, 2010
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Liberty Media(NSDQ:LCAPA,LINTA) has decided to wash its hands of any collaboration with Worldspace (OTC BB: WRSPQ) in helping them re organize and come out of Bankruptcy. Court filings from yesterday;

http://www.kccllc.net/Docket/SearchResults.asp

show that once Worldspace submitted their rebuttal to Liberty Media’s plan with some obvious changes to their benefit, Liberty cooled very quickly on the deal, remaining silent and avoiding any sign of agreement to the revised deal. Apparently, the Worldspace staff and attorneys handling the deal didn’t understand that when you deal from a critical position, and are basically on life support, it’s best not to annoy those who are keeping you alive and giving you your last best shot at survival.

Liberty Media still owns over 100 million in claims regarding Worldspace, so there is still the possibility they get what they really wanted out of the Bankruptcy proceedings. Worldspace now faces total liquidation and either sale or de orbiting of their satellites. No further details are available at this time

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17

Liberty Media (NASDAQ: LCAPA, LINTA) and Sirius XM (NASDAQ: SIRI); Partnership or Content Agreement?

By
Andrew Montero
– March 15, 2010
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With the filed petition through the International Bureau of the FCC by Liberty Satellite Radio to take possession of Worldspace’s Afristar 1 and 2 satellites, it appears the end to the bankruptcy proceedings regarding Worldspace will be upon us fairly soon. Liberty Satellite Radio is the actual filer with agreement from Worldspace of the petition. As discussed previously in earlier articles, Liberty Satellite Radio is a holding company for Liberty Media.

The next big question is will Sirius XM be a partner or a content provider to Liberty? If it were all about fair and equal, one would expect Sirius XM to become a 40% partner in any new venture from Liberty, since they received 40% of Sirius XM for essentially a short term bridge loan. That loan was paid back to Liberty in very short order, and had many shareholders up in arms, for some pretty fair reasons. However that is ancient history, and we know that business can sometimes be ruthless in its conduct.

It is more than reasonable to speculate that Liberty is planning on starting up a satellite radio service with global implications and exclusive content. Part of that content will be native language programming for any countries that grant permission for Liberty to broadcast. Undoubtedly another large part of the situation will involve music, which certainly Sirius XM could provide. But Sirius XM can provide much more, like OEM relationships, and other exclusive content. Additionally, there is the technology and licensing on the XM side, which was granted by Worldspace several years ago to XM, and whatever improvements have been made upon it. Looking at it from the outside as an investor, I would hope that Liberty would enter into a partnership with Sirius XM. This would enable both companies to realize even greater leverage and cost reductions across their respective infrastructures with regard to satellite radio.

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3

Sirius XM Satellite Radio Still a Favorite Target Among Naysayers

By
Andrew Montero
– February 17, 2010
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After more than a year of high wire balancing, Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) shares which went as low as .05 cents last year, have recovered to the milestone of over one dollar in trading today, a price not seen since September 19 2008. Yet the bashing of the company and the fear mongering continues to roll in. It would behoove all current shareholders as well as possible future shareholders to review the business model and SEC filings of the past 6 months at a minimum, as the basher press is in full swing with feigned fears regarding sentiment as well as possible r/s scenario.

The CEO of Sirius XM Radio Mel Karmazin, is on record over the course of the last few months, as saying that a r/s will only be used to stave off delisting from the NASDAQ Global Market. It appears that organically, through merger synergies and other efficiencies gained since the merger of Sirius and XM in 2008, the combined company’s stock has answered the call and is seeing favorable sentiment among investors as well as many fund managers. The climb over a dollar is sure to increase both retail and institutional interest. At the very least, Sirius XM may be on the radar for being re-instated on the Russell Index this year, as it was removed last June due to its share price. Each year, the Russell Investment Group rebalances its indexes during its annual reconstitution commonly known as the Russell Reconstitution or the Russell Rebalance. The removal event occurred June 26 2009, so there are still several months before Sirius XM has an opportunity to be re instated.

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2

Sirius XM Radio and Liberty Media Form a Cozy Relationship (NASDAQ:SIRI, NASDAQ:LCAPA)

By
Andrew Montero
– February 13, 2010
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Liberty Media Seeks Bigger Stake in Live Nation

With the announced purchase of a larger percentage of Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV) by Liberty (NASDAQ: LCAPA, NASDAQ:LINTA) as well as comments from Liberty CEO Greg Maffei regarding the combination of Sirius XM (NASDAQ: SIRI) and Live Nation , it appears that Liberty and Sirius XM are indeed going to enjoy a long and profitable relationship. Maffei did not speak to any known specifics of the future and the relationship, but he did show enthusiasm when speaking to it on CNBC.

Liberty has been very active recently with acquisitions as many of us already know. They should be closing imminently on the purchase of Worldspace (OTCBB: WRSPQ) assets through bankruptcy. The assets are apparently being acquired with some of Liberty’s stake in Sirius XM, more specifically, a percentage of their stake in XM holdings, through their Liberty Satellite LLC holding company.

Liberty Global another of John Malone’s companies (NSDQ: LBTYA, LBTYB) has also been busy getting its acquisition of Unitymedia (from Apollo and BC partners), a German Media and cable conglomerate, finalized, and also shedding its 37.8% position in Japanese cable company Jupiter Telecommunications (J:COM), for $4bn.

There can be no doubt that Liberty is indeed concentrating on Europe, the Caribbean and South America as areas of expansion outside the United States. The addition of Live Nation only enhances the situation. Live Nation has core business in producing, marketing and selling live concerts for artists with a global concert pipe. Live Nation is the largest producer of live concerts in the world, annually producing over 16,000 concerts for 1,500 artists in 57 countries. The company sells over 45 million concert tickets a year. Live Nation is transforming the concert business by expanding its concert platform into ticketing and building the industry’s first artist-to-fan vertically integrated concert platform. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, additional information about the company can be found at http://www.livenation.com/investors.

With Sirius XM already having Effanel studios since 2005, even more synergies can be gained for all concerned parties between Liberty, Sirius XM and Live Nation. Of course, that is a future story that is yet to even begin. In fact it is only in its early infancy with the Liberty acquisition of a larger percentage of Live Nation not even 24 hours old. Still some healthy speculation based on known information is never a bad thing. Clearly, there is going to be much more value added to all three entities, Liberty, Sirius XM and Live Nation. Those who have the foresight to continue digging for information along that path may end up reaping very ripe and healthy fruit for their labor. The situation bears watching for sure, and I personally will be doing just that. As always, do your own due diligence and best of luck.

Disclosure: Long SIRI

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3

Sirius Continues to Attract Attention

By
Andrew Montero
– February 4, 2010
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Sirius XM (NSDQ: SIRI) continues to improve their standing as a viable company. The release of the Blackberry application PR from the company is just another tell tale sign that the company is marching forward and looking to the future in many directions: http://investor.sirius.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=443007 The stock has seen a recent increase in daily volume and value despite some recent fear and bearishness from people worrying about a possible reverse split due to listing requirements for NASDAQ. To that end, CEO Mel Karmazin appears to be executing a plan to ensure the company stays listed on the NASDAQ Global Market. Some have even theorized that the company should r/s now to mitigate manipulation due to such a large share count. This would be a bad move in my humble opinion and I believe it is not the intent of Sirius XM or Mel Karmazin to let that happen now. Too many positives have been and continue to be achieved.

As several of us here at King of All Trades have stated of Sirius XM over the last few months, the combined company is presenting and executing a different business model than in previous years as separate companies. They have grown revenue and increased cash flow in one of the most challenging economies of our lifetimes, as well as stemmed the flow of subscriber losses with many consumers having much less discretionary income. The company has also stayed on point with improving costs through merger synergies and with continued improvements quarter over quarter in operating expenses. The fundamentals continue to move forward in positive fashion. Early press for the upcoming conference call is positive….so…try to think about why you invested in this company in the first place. The short term price swings are not important in the big picture; they are merely scenes in a play. You are not supposed to get in on opportunities like this, many try to shake your confidence in hope of getting your shares…and forcing you to buy higher…taking your hard earned profits, so know the risks, formulate a plan if you do not have one already and stick to it. The rest will sort itself out.

Sirius XM has yet to report on Used Car program numbers and their impact to the bottom line subscriber numbers, or the full impact of the new Skydock to retail subscriber numbers. The company continues to assert itself as a force to be reckoned with in Media and Content distribution. Liberty Medias (NSDQ: LCAPA) investment in Sirius XM last February has reaped a lot of fruit to date, and according to Greg Maffei of Liberty, Sirius is on track to continue to improve so much, that it will use up its NOLS far sooner than anticipated. As a side note, LCAPA stock just received an upgrade recently, as did Sirius XMs debt. Companies get debt upgrades when their balance sheets look more favorable.

Disclosure: Long SIRI

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