The NAV discount is actually slightly bigger than advertised due to a discount to NAV at Liberty Broadband and a bargain purchase of GCI. However, I think that Ventures is significantly more interesting than a “mere” 20% discount as that discount to NAV fails to capture three things: That ~20% discount alone is attractive, and Liberty / Malone have a history of collapsing discounts at opportune moments so investors can feel reasonably confident that the discount will close when it makes the most sense to do so. Their investor presentation does a nice job of breaking out all of their different assets and liabilities. Post GCI deal close, Ventures will consist of 4 main assets: 100% ownership of GCI (the operating business), 42.7m shares of Liberty Broadband (ticker: LBRDK), 5.4m shares of Charter (ticker: CHTR), and ~$500m worth of two other stocks (2.8m shares of Lending Tree 10.2m shares of FTD). The GCI deal will give Ventures an operating business that will allow them to shift from a tracking stock to an asset based company and give them a bit of diversification from their massive Charter position. Over time, Ventures spun out most of those interests and played a major role in funding the Charter / Time Warner Cable deal, and rapid appreciation in Charter’s share price post deal resulted in most of Venture’s NAV coming from Charter. The basic background is that Ventures was formed to hold a grab bag of public stocks and other investments. You can find tons of background on how the company came to its current state by searching through the Malone fanboy site also known as, so I won’t go into a detailed background on its history. Ventures is, of course, part of the John Malone Liberty complex. It’s my belief that, over the next few years, share repurchases and underlying NAV growth will drive massive shareholder returns, and that the merger will serve as the first in a series of steps that will see the new GCI ultimately be acquired by Charter for a large premium. On April 4, Liberty Ventures (AKA Ventures ticker: LVNTA / LVNTA disclosure: long) announced a deal to merge with General Communications (AKA GCI ticker: GNCMA disclosure: long) and form a new company known as GCI Liberty. Liberty Ventures (LVNTA) trades at a deep discount to net asset value (NAV)Īfter the GCI deal goes through, LVNTA should become a share repurchase machine and will likely be acquired at a nice premium in the next few years
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