Liberty Media Corporation had wanted to boost its stake as Ticketmaster was recently merged into Live Nation. But its tender to buy more shares of the merged company fell well short of its goal.
Back on January 26th, Liberty offered to pay $12 per share for up to 34.2 million shares of Live Nation. That would have pretty much doubled the stake it held in the company, resulting from its former holdings in Ticketmaster. At the time, that was a premium price. Live Nation had closed the previous day at $10.51.
But since then, the stock price has moved up considerably. Live Nation closed Tuesday’s trading at $13.03, an hour before the tender offer from Liberty expired.
Not surprisingly, most Live Nation shareholders passed on the $12 offer. However, 310,926 shares were tendered and not withdrawn. That’s less than 1% of the number it had sought, but Liberty will buy them for $12 each. That will increase its stake in Live Nation from 14.3% to 14.5%.
The pre-merger Live Nation was launched as the spin-off of Clear Channel Entertainment from Clear Channel Communications. It was the nation’s largest concert company and, with the recent merger, is now also the nation’s largest ticket seller.
