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Tracking Stocks
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3 Months Ended |
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Mar. 31, 2012
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Tracking Stocks
Tracking stock is a type of common stock that the issuing company intends to reflect or "track" the economic performance of a particular business or "group," rather than the economic performance of the company as a whole. Immediately following the Split-Off, Liberty had two tracking stocks—Liberty Starz common stock and Liberty Capital common stock, which were intended to track and reflect the economic performance of the Starz Group and Capital Group, respectively. On November 28, 2011, Liberty completed the conversion of each outstanding share of Liberty Starz common stock for 0.88129 of a share of the corresponding series of Liberty Capital common stock, with cash paid in lieu of any fractional shares (the "Conversion"). As a result of the Conversion, there are no outstanding shares of Liberty Starz common stock at March 31, 2012 and December 31, 2011, respectively. The Liberty Capital common stock previously traded under the LCAPA and LCAPB ticker symbols, and following the Conversion the ticker symbols changed to LMCA and LMCB, respectively.
While the Starz Group and the Capital Group had separate collections of businesses, assets and liabilities attributed to them prior to the Conversion, no group was a separate legal entity and therefore could not own assets, issue securities or enter into legally binding agreements. Holders of tracking stocks had no direct claim to the group's stock or assets and were not represented by separate boards of directors. Instead, holders of tracking stock were stockholders of the parent corporation, with a single board of directors and subject to all of the risks and liabilities of the parent corporation.
On February 9, 2011, prior to the Split-Off, Liberty Interactive's board approved a change in the attribution of the 3.125% Exchangeable Senior Debentures due 2023, the stock into which such debt is exchangeable and cash of $264 million from its Capital Group to its Interactive Group (the "TWX Reattribution").
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