Liberty Media chairman John Malone may consider swapping a stake in Time Warner for the media company’s AOL Internet-access business. Time Warner has been seeking a buyer for the division and will separate it from AOL’s advertising and content unit by year-end.
Analyst Anthony DiClemente of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York estimated in a note last month that the access unit is worth $1.5 billion. It has 8.1 million paying U.S. customers, down from more than 31 million worldwide in 2001.
Liberty, based in Douglas County, wants to sell its $1.6 billion stake in Time Warner, and shares of its Liberty Capital tracking stock would be more valuable if the stake were traded for an operating business, Malone told analysts Monday on a conference call.
“An exit from the Time Warner equity stake into a cash-generating asset would be attractive,” said Malone, 67. He said no talks had been held about any such deal. Bloomberg News
