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Nader Asks Carl Icahn to Rescue Sirius XM
From John Malone |
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By
Stephen Grocer
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― Bloomberg News |
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Politics is known to make strange
bedfellows. Seems business can too.
Longtime consumer-advocate Ralph Nader this morning is calling on
Carl Icahn to intervene in
Liberty Media’s bid to acquire the rest of Sirius XM it doesn’t own.
Liberty Media’s offer would convert Sirius’s common stock
into new Liberty Series C nonvoting shares. The proposed
exchange ratio would value Sirius common stock at about $3.68 a share, a
3.1% premium based on the closing prices of the companies’ shares on Friday.
Shares of Sirius are up 6% Monday to $3.80, while Liberty Media’s stock is
down 2.5% to $141.68.
Mr.
Nader called the offer “ludicrous,“ saying that Sirius is a “fast growing
company with bright indicators.”
“I am
sure that I along with other shareholders in Sirius XM will be interested in
a legal challenge to
John Malone‘s company for lowballing Sirius XM’s shareholder value,” Mr.
Nader said in a release.
He
then concludes the release with this line: “Carl Icahn — take notice and
interest.”
Mr.
Nader told CNBC last month he had reached out to Mr. Icahn to talk about
shareholder rights in general.
Last year Mr. Icahn opposed Michael Dell and
Silver Lake’s efforts to take Dell private. Mr.
Icahn alleged the tech founder was pulling the rug out from under the
stockholders with an undervalued offer. Mr. Dell argued that the deal was
fair given the continued slide in PC sales and was the best way forward.
Shareholders eventually voted for the deal, but not until Mr. Dell had
sweetened his offer.
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David Benoit contributed to this post.
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