By Steve Garcia

In the weeks since the final bankruptcy sale and approval of Worldspace assets to Noah Samara; this time through Yazmi LLC, one thing is abundantly clear.  The plight of all the assets of Worldspace and SATCO is as yet unknown and still awaiting a final outcome.  Court documents prior to final sale stated that the consideration to be received from Yazmi in the sale purchase agreement would not be sufficient to pay Liberty Satellite Radio and Liberty Satellite Radio Holdings in full.  The Debtors estimated that Liberty’s aggregate secured claims were in excess of $116 million dollars.  Under the settlement agreement, the Debtors were released from such claims and the corresponding liens, allowing the Debtors to distribute the proceeds of the sale to other creditors.  In exchange for that, the Debtors and the other Parties to the settlement agreement provided releases to Liberty, and Liberty received other consideration.  That “other consideration” was Liberty obtaining a return of $370,000 in funds which the debtors transferred to Liberty; that Liberty had loaned to support the WorldSpace Italia subsidiary.  When Liberty decided not to pursue a Liberty purchase agreement, the need for those funds evaporated. Liberty also received $250,000 of the Yazmi sale proceeds, which was 5% of the total and significantly less than Liberty would have gotten if its senior secured claims were still in effect.  The Debtors believe that the note from WorldSpace Italia that Liberty received is of little value; the Debtors also believe WorldSpace Italia cannot repay that note, and the Debtors themselves have limited resources with which to possibly pursue collection.  The Debtors were willing to relinquish their right to abandon their responsibilities and their assets to Liberty in exchange for Liberty’s relinquishment of much Read the rest of this entry →

Mel and Howard

By Relmor Demitrius

The day Howard Stern signed with Sirius Satellite Radio, the radio landscape was changed forever.  I think we can all agree that with this decision in 2005, to some degree at least, radio did indeed change.  To what degree and what lasting affect did it have might be debatable.  The biggest celebrity on radio and considered the most talented voice on radio, well, wasn’t on traditional radio anymore.  There was a new format in town.  Commercial free radio that could be heard anywhere in the country.  Satellite radio (SATRD) would change how people listened to the radio forever.  But how did Howard Stern change radio?  To what extent?  Is this a lasting change or a minor hiccup in the history of terrestrial radio?  Is the norm for radio soon to be satellite delivery?  Would more and more talent move from traditional outlets into this latest technology?  Five years later we can begin to answer these questions. 

On the tail end of Howard Sterns first contract with Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) is a good place to stop and consider just what  the affect was of his signing and how the future looks  with or without Howard Stern.  In this first part of a three part series of articles I will delve into this topic and cover different angles to these questions.  I would like to first lay some groundwork on Howard Stern and present some facts that might improve our understanding of Stern, Sirius XM, radio in general and the relationships these three entities share.

How did Howard Stern even come to be on Satellite Radio?

Read the rest of this entry →

By Gino Lattarulo

Last week Maxim Group initiated coverage of Sirius / XM (NASDAQ:SIRI) with a “buy” rating and a 1.40 price target. It appears that most analysts share Maxim’s upbeat opinion — Reporting site Zacks shows four “strong buys,” two “holds” and zero “sells”. Hedge Fund mogul George Soros got in on the action as well by purchasing 29 million convertible notes ( valued at 28 million). With 5.6% of SIRI’s float being short interest I think that some squeezing will begin to take effect in the near future as the bearish trades begin to unwind.

For Sirius, the real confidence comes not only from its debt issue being resolved by Liberty Media, but from increased subscriber sales fueled by the ever important auto sector which is once again experiencing growth. Ford (NYSE:F) , Toyota (NYSE:TM), Honda (NYSE:HMC), and the newly minted GM have all reported solid quarterly numbers with encouraging forward guidance.

The satellite radio subscriber base at the end of the second quarter was 19.5 million which is an increase of 6% over 2009.  Sirius expects to add another 1.1 million subscribers by the end of  2010, has generated higher average revenue per user,  and lowered costs to help fuel net profit.  Subscribers paid  $11.81 per month (11 % from the same quarter in 2009) due to demand for the “Best Of” programming. These strong results also show that the negative impact from free services may not be as high as expected as the company reiterated its annual estimates of $2.8 billion in revenue. It was the third straight quarter that  Sirius reported better than expected results. Read the rest of this entry →

By Relmor Demitrius

Greg Maffei

Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ:SIRI) is offered many opinions of what their shares are actually worth.  It just depends on who you listen too.  There seems to be a vastly different view of just how much one should pay for this equity and ultimately what is their appropriate market cap.  If readers know my style, they know I do not work with subjectives or opinions.  I like cold hard facts when I tackle a problem.  The pulse of the investor community seems to be right now on trying to understand how an equity so obviously undervalued is still priced at $1 a share.  What is Sirius XM’s real fair value?  Well why waste a second longer, let us begin.

Without boring anyone on just how dangerous it is to attempt to use the stock market current price at any one time to try to determine actual retail sale value of a company and hence what one share is actually worth in reality (meaning if every share were to be purchased at one time, at what price could they buy the company) might offer a little insight.  Here is a good example of this from 2008. Read the rest of this entry →

By: Gino Lattarulo

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been the eponym for online search engines almost from inception. The company’s success is legendary and it seemingly has hands in every technological cookie jar you can think of. From the cloud formatted clone of Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Office to the video phenom YouTube, Google just seems like it can do no wrong. Now the rumor is that Google wants to make another attempt at social networking by launching a service to rival Facebook and Twitter. Ehhh… umm….. hoo boy, I really have a hard time thinking this will be a success. “Why” you ask? Well allow me to retort.

First:   Google has already purchased the social site Orkut which is popular in Brazil and India but has failed to really make a splash in America. Then they launched Buzz (accessed through GMAIL) which has been a total flop.  I mean let’s get real here, when you have an application built directly into 100 million accounts and it isn’t being utilized, just let it die.

Second: Facebook, MySpace, and  Twitter already dominate the social networking scene; with Facebook owning 58% of the real estate, MySpace 9%, and Twitter 1.1%.    I am an admitted Facebook-aholic myself and personally it would take something profound to make me switch. Read the rest of this entry →