Liberty Media signals interest in AOL's dial-up business

Yesterday's Liberty Media Q2 earnings call was liberally dosed with rather frank disclosures from chairman John Malone about potentially big business moves, including swapping its majority stake in Time Warner for AOL's dial-up business.

During Liberty Media's second quarter earnings call Q&A yesterday, chairman John Malone was asked if he'd consider a transaction that may not have "strategic merits for the rest of the Liberty Enterprise, but makes financial sense in the context of LCAP (Liberty Capital Group, the company's non-interactive or entertainment properties)."

The example he gave was AOL's dialup business, which despite its decline as a viable business model, continues somehow to generate cash.

Dr. Malone told analysts that even though Liberty's strategy is a work in progress, "clearly an exit from the Time Warner equity stake into a cash generating asset would be attractive. At the current time none have been proposed that we could take action on, but we would certainly continue to try and maintain good relations with [CEO] Jeff [Bewkes] and the Time Warner folks in the event that such a transaction would present itself."

Also, Malone mused on recent analyst speculation about DirecTV -- in which Liberty now holds a 48% stake -- merging with Dish Network.

"I don't understand why the journalists all of a sudden discovered the potential of a merger of Echo with Direct," he commented. "We have talked about it frequently in the past, it would be very synergistic if it were doable. However, we don't see that the regulatory environment has changed since the last time we made comments on the subject and we think it will be problematic to try and merge the two companies at the current regulatory environment."

Some analysts believe that the FCC's approval of the XM-Sirius merger has opened the door for satellite television providers to do the same. In February, Liberty returned $11 billion worth of News Corp. stock for a 41% stake in DirecTV, and has since accumulated more.

Liberty Media also owns sizable interests in interactive, entertainment and capital properties like QVC.com, Starz Media, and the Atlanta Braves baseball team, as well as minority stakes in companies such as Time Warner Inc. and Sprint Nextel.