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Clash of the titans: Malone, Diller

Once trusted friends, pair now battling for IAC

By Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 30, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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John Malone and Barry Diller are feuding publicly, after working together since the mid-1990s to build IAC, owner of the Home Shopping Network, Ticketmaster and dozens of Internet-related businesses.

IAC Chairman Diller wants to split IAC into five publicly held companies; Liberty Media would lose its majority voting interest under the current plan. Douglas County-based Liberty Media has sued to block the spinoff and to oust Diller and his loyalists.

* Background: Malone gave Diller the right to vote Liberty's IAC shares 12 years ago.

"When (Malone) signed off his voting control, he trusted Diller to look after his stake," said Scott Devitt, a Virginia-based analyst at Stifel Nicolaus.

Devitt sees Liberty as moving to protect that stake and exert pressure on Diller. One scenario is that Diller will finally give Home Shopping Network to Malone in exchange for Liberty's IAC stake, Devitt said.

Liberty also has expressed an interest in Ticketmaster. Devitt said it's also possible that IAC will be broken up, with its major assets sold piecemeal.

Barry Diller

Malone's attempt to gain control of IAC is "preposterous" and a "desperate sideshow." . . . Liberty now has gone off the deep end.

IAC statement Tuesday

* Talent agency mailroom clerk turned entertainment mogul.

* Former head of Paramount Pictures and Fox. Attempted hostile takeover of Paramount in 1993. Now chairman and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp. "The Killer Dillers" refers to people he has helped groom to become media executives. Married fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg in 2001.

John Malone

Diller's actions amount to a "corporate coup," and breach of good faith and fair dealing. Liberty Media lawsuit against Barry Diller/IAC, Jan. 24

* Engineer/cable-TV entrepreneur turned media mogul

* Sold Tele-Communications Inc. to AT&T for $48 billion in the late 1990s. Malone's Liberty Media is a multibillion-dollar empire that includes the QVC shopping network, Starz Entertainment and cable properties overseas. In process of acquiring controlling stake of DirecTV.

Comments

  • January 30, 2008

    10:07 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    Malone shoud knock Dillers teeth in - horrible returns for years. Diller has taken a $22 stock in 1998 and kept it there.