This issue was touched on towards the end of the last SiriusBuzz radio show....
This SEC filing says......
http://investor.sirius.com/secfiling...=930413-09-841
What are the standstill restrictions that "cease to apply after two years"? I'm confused by that part....."The Purchaser has agreed not to acquire more than 49.9% of our outstanding common stock for three years. Certain of the standstill restrictions will cease to apply after two years."
It seems that Liberty could be wanting to either be acquiring shares down at this level so that they would be able to take controlling interest in 3 years - or could they possibly partner with another 1 or 2 larger holders of SIRI (such as Apollo) before or after the 3 years are up? Would Liberty and another larger holder be able to theoretically take controlling interest of SIRI now and sell the company on whatever terms they wanted - regardless of what the rest of the common shareholders wanted? Would holders of the rest of the common have any say at all? Can these kinds of decisions be made with just over a 50% controlling interest?
What other possible motivations could there be for Liberty to take a controlling stake in SIRI? Would they possibly want to merge SIRI with DirecTV down the road? Would they have to convert their preferred shares at that time. How much of the debt has change of control covenants in it and how easily could those be negotiated?
Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated.......
Homer?