Liberty Media Corp. (NYSE: L, LMC.B), headquartered in Englewood, has announced plans to spin off a separate company comprised of its ownership interests in Santa Monica-headquartered Ascent Media Group and Discovery Communications. Ascent is the parent company of such commercial postproduction brands as Company 3 (Santa Monica and New York), R!OT (Santa Monica, New York and Atlanta), Method (Santa Monica), Filmcore (Santa Monica and San Francisco), Encore (Hollywood) and Rushes (London).
The transaction–expected to occur during the second quarter of this year–is intended to be tax-free to shareholders and Liberty Media, and would create a new publicly-traded company called Discovery Holding Company (DHC).
This would once again make this group of companies a publicly traded entity. In May 2003, Liberty purchased the remaining shares of then publicly-traded Ascent, making it a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Media.
Formerly known as Liberty Livewire Corp., Ascent was formed as a result of the 2000 and ’01 acquisition of The Todd-AO Corp, Four Media Company, Video Services Corp, certain operations of SounDelux Entertainment Group and several other businesses engaged in creative and technical media services.
Per the new plan, DHC will be comprised of Liberty Media’s 100 percent ownership interest in Ascent Media as well as its 50 percent ownership stake in Discovery. In the spin-off, record holders of Liberty Media Series A and Series B common stock would receive 0.05 of a share of the corresponding series of DHC common stock for each share of Liberty Media common stock held by them as of the record date (which has not been set). Cash will be delivered in lieu of fractional share interests.