Douglas County-based Liberty Media may want to trade some of its Time Warner Inc. stock in exchange for some of Time Warner’s assets.
Liberty Media holds a 4 percent stake in New York-based media giant Time Warner, valued at $3.1 billion.
In an earnings call Wednesday, Liberty Media chief Greg Maffei told investors that the company was in talks with Time Warner.
“We are in continued dialogue with Time Warner,” Maffei said, according to a transcript of the call. “We would love to get some operating assets. They’ve announced some of their operating assets are for sale.”
That includes the Atlanta Braves, according to The Wall Street Journal. The price tag for the Braves could total $400 million. Separately, Time Warner and Liberty each own half of Courtroom Television Network.
Although Maffei couldn’t predict if or when a transaction would occur, he said Liberty is interested in ways such a deal would be tax efficient.
Last month, Liberty asked the Federal Trade Commission to accelerate the conversion of its nonvoting stake in Time Warner to voting shares before 2007.
Liberty is currently subject to a 1997 FTC order prohibiting it from converting its Time Warner stake to voting shares until February 2007, because it was a subsidiary of Tele-Communications Inc., the largest U.S. cable company at the time. Tele-Communications no longer exists, and Liberty does not have an ownership interest in a U.S. cable system.
Staff writer Kimberly S. Johnson can be reached at 303-820-1088 or kjohnson@denverpost.com.
