“Although most of the businesses of these companies were once part of the same predecessor company, Liberty Media Corporation, Liberty Interactive Corporation, Liberty Broadband Corporation, Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings Inc., Starz and Liberty Global Plc are separate public companies,” according to Liberty Media’s website.
Viacom, NorthStar
Maffei isn’t the only executive that receives pay from more than one company. Billionaire Sumner Redstone is executive chairman of CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc., and received pay from both companies. NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. spun off NorthStar Asset Management Group Inc. in 2014. David Hamamoto is CEO of the businesses and was granted compensation from both.
Malone has a net worth of $7.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In the past decade, his media conglomerate has done several spinoffs of subsidiary businesses to its shareholders.
The deals serve to increase transparency of asset values to shareholders and to help the companies raise capital, Yong said. Maffei became CEO of Liberty Interactive, Liberty TripAdvisor and Liberty Broadband upon completion of each spinoff.
Spin Offs
The company spun off its international cable business, which became Liberty Global, in 2004. The next year, it hired Maffei, who’d served as Oracle Corp.’s chief financial officer. He’d previously held the same role at Microsoft Corp. That same year, Liberty Media sold its 50 percent stake in Discovery Communications, which owns TV channels such as TLC and the Oprah Winfrey Network.
In 2011, Liberty Media was spun off from Liberty Interactive, which wholly owns QVC and has a stake in publicly- traded HSN Inc., the owner of home-shopping television channels. Liberty Media was also spun off from Starz in 2013.
Liberty Interactive spun off Liberty TripAdvisor last year. That business owns a stake in travel website TripAdvisor Inc. and wholly owns party supply- and costume-seller Buy Seasons Inc. Liberty Media also spun off its stakes in Charter Communications Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc. last year, naming the new entity Liberty Broadband.