Braves Parent Liberty Media Q3 Earnings Fall, Though Revenue Rises
Staff Report From Metro Atlanta CEO
Thursday, November 5th, 2015
Liberty Media Corporation ("Liberty Media") (NASDAQ: LMCA, LMCB, LMCK) today reported third quarter 2015 results. Highlights include:
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SiriusXM reported strong third quarter results
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Subscriber base grew to nearly 29 million
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Record third quarter revenue up 11% to $1.17 billion
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Net income of $167 million, an increase of 22%
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Adjusted EBITDA climbed 17% to record $447 million
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Free cash flow per fully-diluted share increased 54% to 6.9 cents
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Liberty Media’s ownership of SiriusXM stood at 60.7% as of October 20th
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Completed hedging period for forward purchase of Live Nation Entertainment shares
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Acquiring 15.9 million shares at average share price of $24.91; upon settlement will own 34.4%
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From August 1st through October 31st, repurchased 1.0 million LMCK shares at an average price per share of $36.87 and a total cost of $38.3 million
“SiriusXM had another outstanding quarter, reaching record revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. Subscribers reached an all-time high of almost 29 million, and SiriusXM continues to extend its lead in exclusive, valuable content,” stated Greg Maffei, President and CEO of Liberty Media. “At Liberty, we continued to repurchase our shares and completed the hedging period on our forward purchase of Live Nation shares. Upon settlement, our ownership of Live Nation will increase to 34.4%.”
Liberty Media
Liberty Media's revenue increased $100 million to $1.3 billion in the third quarter. Adjusted OIBDA increased $81 million to $473 million and operating income increased $72 million to $321 million. The increases in revenue, adjusted OIBDA and operating income were primarily due to operating results at SiriusXM.
SiriusXM
SiriusXM is a separate publicly traded company and additional information about SiriusXM can be obtained through its website and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. SiriusXM reported its stand-alone third quarter results on October 22, 2015. For presentation purposes in this release, we include below the results of SiriusXM, as reported by SiriusXM, without regard to the purchase accounting adjustments applied by us for purposes of our financial statements. Liberty Media believes the presentation of financial results as reported by SiriusXM is useful to investors as the comparability of those results is best understood in the context of SiriusXM's historical financial presentation. For a reconciliation of revenue, adjusted OIBDA (as defined by Liberty Media) and operating income for SiriusXM's stand-alone operating results as reported by SiriusXM to those results as reported by Liberty Media, see Liberty Media's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2015.
Highlights of SiriusXM's earnings release included the following:
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Record third quarter revenue up 11% to $1.17 billion
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Third quarter net income climbed 22% to $167 million
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Adjusted EBITDA(2) climbed 17% to a record $447 million
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Free cash flow per fully-diluted share increased 54% to 6.9 cents
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SiriusXM’s cumulative share repurchases now exceed $6 billion
Share Repurchases
Between the reclassification of the original Liberty Capital tracking stock on March 3, 2008 and July 23, 2014, Liberty Media repurchased shares of Series A common stock for aggregate cash consideration of approximately $2.9 billion, representing 51% of shares outstanding. From August 1, 2015 through October 31, 2015, Liberty Media repurchased approximately 1.0 million shares of Series C common stock at an average cost per share of $36.87 for total cash consideration of $38.3 million. For the period covering the creation of the Liberty Media Series C common stock on July 23, 2014 through October 31, 2015, Liberty Media repurchased approximately 8.9 million shares of Series A and
Series C common stock collectively at an average cost per share of $37.92 for total cash consideration of $338 million, representing 2.6% of shares outstanding(4). The total remaining repurchase authorization for Liberty Media stock is approximately $1.3 billion.