Liberty Media Reports Higher Revenue, Vivendi Settlement

By Anne Steele 

Liberty Media Corp. on Friday reported its profit fell 5.9% in the final quarter of the year, though revenue climbed more than expected on strong performance from SiriusXM.

Liberty Media also said French media company Vivendi Universal SA has agreed to pay Liberty Media $775 million to settle a lawsuit related to a dispute over a 2001 transaction.

The Vivendi lawsuit stemmed from Liberty's sale in 2001 of its interest in USA Networks Inc. to Vivendi in exchange for shares in the French conglomerate. Those shares lost much of their value soon after the deal when Vivendi suffered from a liquidity crisis.

Shares of Liberty Media rose 2% to $36 in light trading premarket.

Liberty Media Chief Executive Greg Maffei said SiriusXM ended the year with a record 29.6 million subscribers. He pointed to the satellite radio service's long-term agreement with Howard Stern that includes his extensive audio and video library, in addition to channels with David Bowie, Billy Joel, Hank Haney and Nigel Barker.

The Englewood, Colo., media conglomerate in November said it would reclassify its common shares into three tracking-stock groups, a move the company said will highlight each group's operations and make it more practical to raise money for them.

Liberty said one of the groups would be called Liberty Braves Group, focused on assets related to the Atlanta Braves baseball team, while another would include the company's roughly 60% stake in satellite-radio operator Sirius XM Holdings Inc. The third group would include Liberty's stakes in Live Nation Entertainment Inc., Time Warner Inc. and Viacom Inc.

On Friday, Mr. Maffei said the company continues to make progress on its plan to recapitalize into three tracking stock groups, and expects to hold a shareholder vote in April.

For the quarter ended Dec. 31, Liberty Media reported a profit of $134.6 million, down from $143.1 million a year earlier. Revenue rose 10% to $1.21 billion, mostly due to SiriusXM. Liberty Media said its ownership of SiriusXM stood at 62.1% as of Jan. 29.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast $1.19 billion in revenue.

The company said it repurchased 298,000 shares for $11.7 million at an average price of $39.34 a share.

Write to Anne Steele at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 26, 2016 09:03 ET (14:03 GMT)

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