Liberty Interactive spinning out QVC as tracking stock; Now trading as QVC Group (QVCA & B)
Tom Paine
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Liberty Interactive Corp announced last week the go-ahead plans for its previously announced (last October) intent to split into two tracking stocks, one for its group of digital commerce businesses to be named Liberty Ventures Group, and the other for West Chester-based QVC, which will be named QVC Group.
The move is intended to increase strategic focus on QVC and enable it to make moves to increase market share and growth. One often discussed possibility would be the acquisition by QVC Group of the 62% of HSN Inc. (originally Home Shopping Network) it does not already own. QVC has been growing slowly lately, but is in a position to consolidate share in the TV-based home shopping business. QVC has also been growing its web-based business, particularly via mobile.
Liberty Interactive, which is already trading under the QVCA and QVCB symbols (NASDAQ), is worth a lot of money. Its current market value is $16.5 billion.
The Liberty Ventures business is valued at $1.5 billion, in addition to $1 billion in cash.
QVC reported 2.3% growth in the US during the first half of this year to $2.66 billion. Worldwide, revenue was up 1.5% to $4 billion. QVC says 40% of its US business is ecommerce-based, with mobile accounting for 43% of that.
