Liberty chief eyes Murdoch deals

LIBERTY Media chairman John Malone, who recently became News Corp's second-largest voting shareholder after Rupert Murdoch, has flagged closer co-operation between the two media giants as he prepares to spin off Liberty's international businesses, worth $9bn (£5bn).

'There are assets that News Corp has that Liberty finds very attractive and wouldn't mind owning directly,' Malone said. 'And perhaps there are assets that Liberty has that News Corp would find quite attractive over time.'

There was no immediate indication as to what Murdoch thought of the idea but Malone suggested that Liberty's Discovery Channel may be on his shopping list. Malone raised his News Corp voting stake to 9.15% in January, giving him leverage to push deals.

The spin-off of the businesses is part of a restructuring of the company aimed at answering complaints that it was not transparent enough. Malone said he hoped the move would show the group's true value.

Analysts have said they believe the international assets have been undervalued for some time. Malone said he expected the process to be completed by summer, resulting in a new publicly traded company, Liberty Media International, listed on Nasdaq with himself as chief executive.

Liberty's international assets include stakes in UnitedGlobal-Com, which operates cable systems in Europe and Latin America, Japanese cable operator Jupiter Telecommunications, Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico and Pramer, which owns cable networks in Argentina.

UnitedGlobalCom recently said it was buying France's largest cable operator, Noos, from French utility Suez between $620m and $805m in cash and stock. The deal will add 1.8m subscribers and about e400m (£272m) in revenue to UnitedGlobalCom.

The new international cable unit is familiar territory to Malone, who established a similar cable television empire, Tele-Communications, which he sold to AT&T in the 1990s.

Liberty International will be one of the largest cable operators outside the US, with 10m subscribers.

Liberty Media reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $931m against a year-earlier loss of $692m. Revenue improved dramatically to $2.12bn from $536m as a result of its acquisition of Comcast's 57% stake in cable shopping channel QVC.