Liberty Calls Itself News Corp. Ally

Liberty Media Corp., which recently acquired the right to nearly double its stake in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., has “no hostile intentions” toward the company, Chief Executive Robert Bennett said Tuesday.

“There has been a lot of speculation surrounding this transaction, but I would like to make it very clear that we view ourselves as allies of News Corp. and the Murdoch family,” Bennett told analysts and investors during a conference call to discuss third-quarter results. “We are a large, happy, friendly shareholder.... We are simply taking an advantage of an opportunity we saw in the market.”

The Englewood, Colo., media investment company is “not surprised or troubled” by News Corp.’s decision to adopt a “poison pill” takeover defense plan in the wake of Liberty’s move to boost its voting stake in the company to 17%, Bennett said.

He declined to comment on asset swaps or other possible transactions with News Corp.

“I don’t want to add any fuel to the speculation about what is going on or what might happen or might not happen.”

Bennett said Liberty didn’t notify News Corp. of its plans “given the sensitivity of the trade.”

He added that Murdoch and John Malone, who controls Liberty, had had several conversations since Liberty outlined plans last week to increase its stake.

Liberty’s motive behind the transaction was to take advantage of the expected difference in price between News Corp.’s voting and nonvoting shares as the Australian media conglomerate shifts its domicile to the United States, Bennett said.

“We have the thing structured so that we’ll be able to settle [it] with nonvoting shares,” Bennett said.

“And we expect the nonvoting shares, given the expected inclusion of News Corp. in the U. S. indices, should trade up. Therefore it was an opportunity to buy voting shares while they were cheap and hopefully pay for them with nonvoting shares that will become more expensive.”

Also Tuesday, Liberty Media reported earnings of $372 million, or 13 cents a share, on revenue of $1.83 billion for the quarter ended Sept. 30.

In the same period last year, it earned $41 million, or 1 cent a share, on revenue of $877 million.

Analysts had expected earnings of 2 cents a share, according to Thomson First Call.

Separately, Liberty is interested in acquiring Sprint Corp.’s telecommunications tower assets as a way to avoid paying tax if it cashed out of its Sprint stake, Bennett said.