Bloomberg
Posted: 3:52 am
August 12, 2008
Liberty Media Corp. 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 in New York estimated in a note last month that the access unit is worth $1.5 billion. It has 8.1 million paying US customers, down from more than 31 million worldwide in 2001.
Liberty, based in Englewood, Colo., 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 was traded for an operating business, Malone told analysts on a conference call.
