Cable magnate John Malone will take over as Liberty Media’s chief executive for Robert Bennett, who will retire in April, the company said Wednesday.
The unexpected announcement fueled speculation about the future of the Douglas County media company, though analysts say Bennett’s retirement is a personal decision.
“My sense is that it means what they said it means,” said telecommunications analyst Ted Henderson of Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Inc. “This was a personal decision … He has been very successful financially.”
In an interview with The Denver Post, the 47-year-old Bennett said he had been discussing retirement with his wife over the past year.
He said he began talking with with Malone about the move over the past several weeks. The changes were discussed at a Monday board meeting at the company’s headquarters.
Bennett, who will have been Liberty’s CEO for nine years by the time he retires, worked side-by-side with Malone in building a media empire that includes home shopping network QVC, the Starz-Encore premium cable channels, a stake in Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp and, most recently, an 18 percent stake in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
Over the past year, the $24 billion media conglomerate has slimmed itself by spinning off its international cable assets and Discovery Holding Co., which controls the Discovery Channel.
Bennett’s departure seems part of this slimming down, said Henderson, the analyst. “When you transform a company like that, there are a lot of attendant changes that happen,” he said. “Frankly there is less to do day-to-day.”
Bennett said, however, “It’s wrong to say the company is slowing down. We have spun off a couple of businesses principally because we could get better value for our shareholders if those were held separately. But with the rest of the company there are lots of growth opportunities.”
Liberty’s shares fell 7 cents Wednesday to close at $8.65 on the New York Stock Exchange. But Bob Scherman, editor and publisher of Satellite Business News, said the move should be good news for investors.
“Any time that John Malone gets more involved in the daily running of a company, that is good news for shareholders.”
Liberty began as the cable-TV programming arm of Tele-Communications Inc., the Denver cable-TV giant that Malone ran for more than 25 years. Malone kept control of Liberty after selling TCI to AT&T Corp. in 1999.
“Malone could also be getting ready to reinvent the company,” Scherman said. “He is not the kind of person to sit on the sidelines.”
Staff writer Ross Wehner can be reached at 303-820-1503 or rwehner@denverpost.com.
