[08-22-12] Sirius XM Radio<\/b> investors have sued the satellite broadcaster\u2019s board of directors for doing enough to protect the company from a potential Liberty Media<\/b> takeover, according to documents filed Aug. 22 with the Delaware Chancery Court in Wilmington.<\/p>\n
In the lawsuit, the shareholders asserted that Sirius XM directors failed to establish anti-takeover defenses for the U.S.-based satellite broadcaster despite efforts by Liberty Media Chairman John Malone to gain control of the company. Malone himself serves on the Sirius XM board due to Liberty Media\u2019s current 48 percent stake in the company.
\n \u201cLiberty executives on Sirius XM Radio\u2019s board are improperly preventing fellow directors from adopting anti-takeover provisions even if doing so would be in the best interests of the company and its shareholders,\u201d the plaintiffs said in the filing.
\n In July, Liberty Media Chairman Malone said he was planning to spin-off Sirius XM Radio into the largest satellite-radio company in the United States after Liberty Media received approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in May to assert control of Sirius XM.
\n \u201cIf I\u2019m in control, I like to have separate companies, run independently, with public shareholders investing in that business,\u201d Malone said in a statement to investors and media. \u201cThere is no question eventually Sirius will be an independent company. The question is, in what time frame and in what circumstances?\u201d
\n Liberty\u2019s investment in SiriusXM includes a $530 million load it issued to the broadcaster in 2009. Since then, Liberty raised its effective stake in SiriusXM to 46.2 percent and has told the SEC and FCC it intends to take over the satellite radio company by buying more shares. Liberty added its intention to nominate more people for election to the SiriusXM board to secure a majority. Though Liberty currently has five representatives on SiriusXM\u2019s 13-member board, its FCC petition includes a reference to replacing the entire SiriusXM board after acquiring sufficient shares of stock.
\n Separately, Sirius XM Radio announced that it recently passed 50 million factory vehicle installations of the company\u2019s satellite radios. Sirius XM services will be factory installed in close to 70 percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States in 2012.
\n \u201cWe are proud that SiriusXM has reached this major milestone since it directly reflects the strong commitment by all automakers to satellite radio and the high level of enjoyment by consumers for our unrivalled audio entertainment service,\u201d Sirius XM President of Operations and Sales Jim Meyer said in a statement. \u201cWe expect to double factory installed vehicles to more than 100 million by 2018 and plan to offer our unique content and valuable entertainment to even more customers in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[08-22-12] Sirius XM Radio investors have sued the satellite broadcaster\u2019s board of directors for doing enough to protect the company from a potential Liberty Media takeover, according to documents filed Aug. 22 with the Delaware Chancery Court in Wilmington. In the lawsuit, the shareholders asserted that Sirius XM directors failed to establish anti-takeover defenses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}