Liberty Interactive first announced it would purchase GCI in April – it completed the deal March 9 – and in typical Liberty fashion, it was a complicated one. Liberty Interactive – now Qurate Retail Group – purchased GCI, but in a tax-free transaction spun the cable company out to yet another Liberty tracking stock, Liberty Ventures. The deal benefits Liberty Interactive by transforming it into an asset-based equity which allows it to be included in major stock indices, and it creates a more robust currency for other deals and for management compensation. For GCI, it gets a big-pocketed backer and the resources to possibly roll up more cable companies across the country.

GCI Liberty opened March 12 at $54.29 per share, climbing as high as $55.47 before closing at $54.73 each

“As part of a larger company, GCI will be even better positioned to compete, innovate, and serve Alaskans and our customers nationwide," said GCI CEO Ron Duncan in a statement. "I am deeply proud of the contributions that GCI employees have made, and will make, to Alaska's development as the 49th state. All of us at GCI are grateful for our customers' support over the years, and we will continue to work hard to retain that support in the years ahead."

As part of the transaction, certain assets of Liberty Ventures were transferred to Liberty Interactive, including $1.04 billion in cash, florist FTD, ILG (parent of travel company Interval International) and tax benefits.

Most analysts see GCI Liberty, which trades under the symbol “GLIBA” as a cheaper way to own Charter Communications stock. Liberty owns a minority interest in Charter through its Liberty Broadband tracking stock, and most analysts expect a GCI Liberty/Liberty Broadband merger in the next 12-to-18 months.

“While Liberty Broadband still offers the most straightforward way to obtain Charter at a discount (11% at current market prices), GCI Liberty offers investors willing to accept a bit more complexity and lower liquidity the opportunity to create Charter at a 21% discount,” Evercore ISI media analyst Vijay Jayant wrote in a note to clients.

HSN Inc. shareholders will gather Dec. 29 at the home shopping giant’s St. Petersburg, Fla., headquarters for a special meeting to approve its $2.6 billion merger with QVC Inc. parent Liberty Interactive, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday.

Liberty first announced the all-stock deal in July, where Liberty Interactive would acquire the 62% of HSN it doesn’t already own. The company plans to keep its HSN and QVC brands separate.

The deal is still subject to federal regulatory approvals. Liberty has said it expects the transaction to be completed by the end of the year.

According to the deal each HSN stockholder will receive 1.65 shares of Liberty Interactive's Series A QVC Group common stock for each share of HSN common stock they own.

According to the prospectus, Liberty Interactive will issue about 53.5 million shares of Liberty QVCA common stock to HSN shareholders, who would own about 11.1% of the equity and 7.2% of the voting power of Liberty Interactive's QVC Group tracking stock. Additionally, HSN shareholders would own about 6.2% of the Liberty Interactive voting power as a whole.

“Timing is finally right,” Liberty Interactive CEO Greg Maffei said before ticking off the reasons for having QVC join forces with home-shopping channel rival HSN in a deal for $2.1 billion in stock.

The reasons mostly had to do with HSNi’s stock price falling to the point where it made sense for Liberty Interactive — which already owned 38.2% of HSNi — to buy out the rest of HSNi.

At points over the last couple of years, HSNi’s share price had been nearly 3 times that of QVC Group, Maffei said, but had slid to about 1.3 times. Measured by multiples of cash flow, QVC actually moved ahead of HSN, he said. “It seems like finally the market had come to our point of view.”

For the cable companies carrying QVC and HSN, the impact will take longer to measure, because those contracts are for relatively long terms. But the message from QVC CEO Mike George on a call with analysts on July 6 was: “Our distributors should win when we’re winning.”

Maffei, George and Rod Little, the chief financial officer at HSNi, told analysts on the conference call that after the transaction closes they will begin talks with distributors that carry the companies’ five channels: QVC, in 104 million homes; QVC2, in 60 million; BeautyiQ, in 40 million; HSN, in 91 million homes; and HSN2, in 48 million.

Barton Crockett, of FBR Capital, asked about differences in what QVC and HSN pay TV distributors. HSNi, he said, pays about 10% of revenue back to U.S. distributors while QVC pays out more like 4% of revenue in deals that have differing structures.

George said differences in deals, but also in channel positions and high-definition versus standard-definition carriage, will all be discussed to find out “what configuration would best optimize viewership for the customers and drive growth and then help restructure arrangements where our distributors benefit from the growth.”

A projected Q4 closing of the HSNi deal won’t be tied to Liberty Interactive’s pending purchase of Alaska cable operator General Communication Inc. (see cover story). Liberty Interactive plans to spin GCI into Liberty Ventures after that transaction closes.

Liberty Interactive Corp. and HSN Inc. (HSNI) have entered into an agreement that will see Liberty Interactive acquire the 62% of HSNi it does not already own in an all-stock transaction.

The deal is valued at $2.6 billion, including debt, or $2.1 billion in equity. HSN and QVC will remain separate brands. 

HSNi assets include 40-year-old multichannel retailer HSN (which launched its TV channel in 1994) and Cornerstone, which comprises home and apparel brands.

READ MORE: Liberty Interactive to buy Alaskan cable operator GCI for $1.1B

Liberty owns shopping network QVC. QVC is the bigger of the two retailers, with more than 8 million customers, while HSNi has more than 5 million, with about 2 million customers overlapping, the companies said. QVC is in 104 million homes and HSN is in 91 million homes, they said. 

HSNi shareholders will receive fixed consideration of 1.65 shares of QVCA for every share of HSNi. Former HSNi shareholders (excluding Liberty Interactive) will own 10.6% of QVC Group’s undiluted equity and 6.9% of undiluted voting power when the transaction concludes. The price reflects a 29% premium on HSNi, the companies said: HSNi closed on July 5 at $31.30 and opened today at $42.50 after the deal was announced. After 11 a.m. the stock was at about $40 per share, up about 28%. QVC A shares, at $24.36, was down about a half a percentage point at that time.

The companies project $75 million to $110 million in annual cost savings will be achieved in three years' time. 

HSN and QVC carriage agreements with TV distributors have different structures, with HSN paying out at a higher rate as a percentage of revenue, analysts pointed out during a call discussing the deal. Liberty Interactive CEO Greg Maffei and the heads of HSNi and QVC said they would be working with distributors, after the transaction closes, to find the best deals for all parties, including on variables including channel positioning and HD versus SD carriage in addition to payouts. Maffei said the distribution contracts are for relatively long terms so that won't be an immediate issue over the next 12 months. "Our distributors should win when we're winning," QVC CEO Mike George said.

Related: Internet Can’t Kill the Retail Star

HSNi headquarters will remain in St. Petersburg, Fla., and will be overseen by George. The acquisition, which awaits regulatory approval, is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter. Approval of the Liberty Interactive stockholders is not required. 

QVC has more than 17,000 employees and its ecommerce unit zulily has more than 3,000, while HSN has 6,500 employees.  

As for why the deal is happening now, Maffei said on the call that the "timing was finally right.” HSN has been trading lower, including on a cash-flow multiple basis, making the deal more affordable to QVC, he said. Management changes at HSNi also played a role: former CEO Mindy Grossman left in May to become chief at Weight Watchers. A year ago, HSN traded in the $50 per share range on NASDAQ.

"The addition of HSN will enhance QVC's position as the leading global video eCommerce retailer. Every year they together produce over 55,000 hours of shoppable video content and have strong positions on multiple linear channels and OTT platforms," said Maffei in a release. "The value of the combined QVC, HSNi and zulily will be further highlighted when later this year QVC Group becomes an asset-backed stock as part of the previously announced split-off of Liberty Ventures."

Liberty Interactive executives said the acquisition of HSNi will increase the scale of the QVC Group and boost cross-marketing “to better engage existing and potential customers.” It also noted HSNi’s lower debt leverage.

“Joining the QVC Group will give us instant access to global consumer markets, a leadership team with deep expertise and a global perspective, and the opportunity to further strengthen our content-based brand portfolios in a changing retail landscape,” said Arthur C. Martinez, HSNi’s chairman of the board of directors, also in a release. “We have both been innovators in a growing and dynamic retail environment with a unique vision of what shopping should be, and as new technologies continue to change our everyday lives, together we can develop the next generation of shopping for the next generation of consumers.”

Cornerstone’s brands include Ballard Designs, Frontgate, Garnet Hill, Grandin Road and Improvements.

Upon closing, the Liberty Interactive board of directors will be expanded to include a director from the HSNi board, selected by Liberty Interactive.

The companies said Allen & Company is serving as financial advisor and Baker Botts LLP is serving as legal advisor to Liberty Interactive. Centerview Partners and Goldman Sachs Group are serving as financial advisors and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is serving as legal advisor to the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of HSNi.

Cable legend John Malone has figured out a novel and characteristically complicated way to turn his two tracking stocks — Liberty Interactive and Liberty Ventures — into asset-backed equities: buy a small cable company.

Malone’s target is General Communication Inc., a small cable and telephone company based in Anchorage, Alaska, with about 107,700 basic video customers.

GCI, as it is called, also has a history with Malone. Its founders, Ron Duncan and Bob Walp, got their original funding to start the business from Malone’s Tele- Communications Inc. and, until 1986, GCI was a wholly-owned subsidiary of TCI.

GCI went public in 1987 and has carved out a nice business for itself. As the largest cable and telephone company in Alaska, GCI had 2016 revenue of $933.8 million and cash flow of $288 million.

And though Malone’s GCI purchase harkens back at least slightly to another Liberty cable investment — the 2013 purchase of a 27% interest in Charter Communications — the purpose for the most recent deal is different. While Liberty saw in Charter an underperforming asset that could be used to acquire other cable operators, which it did by buying Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks last year, the GCI deal appears to be primarily a financial play.

COMPLEX MOVE
The structure of the GCI deal is, in typical Malone fashion, complicated. But it essentially kills two birds with one cable stone.

As part of the deal, Liberty Interactive, currently a tracking stock that follows the performance of home-shopping channel QVC, will purchase GCI in a reorganization where certain assets and liabilities of its other tracking stock, Liberty Ventures, will be contributed to GCI in return for a controlling interest in the MSO. Liberty Interactive will then spin off its controlling interest in GCI in the combined company — renamed GCI Liberty — to the holders of Liberty Ventures, in return for their shares of Liberty Ventures. Liberty Interactive would then officially become QVC Group.

Basically, what the transaction does is this: It allows Malone to transform Liberty Interactive and Liberty Ventures into asset-backed equities, with Liberty Interactive becoming a pure-play programmer with QVC as its largest holding. GCI Liberty, the former Liberty Ventures, which had been an amalgamation of investments — including online invitation and social planning service Evite, interests in Liberty Broadband and florist FTD, and minority interests in Time Warner Inc. online vacation lodging company Interval Leisure Group, Charter Communications and online lender and real estate business LendingTree — becomes a purer-play distributor.

Per to the deal, QVC Group would assume the interests in Time Inc., Time Warner and Interval, while GCI Liberty would keep the Liberty Broadband and Charter interests with GCI as its anchor asset. According to Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media and communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak, GCI Liberty will contain 95% cable-business assets after the deal is done.

Malone is also paying a hefty premium for GCI: The price, $1.1 billion or $32.50 per share, is a 58% premium to the price the stock was trading at on April 3, the day before the deal was announced. GCI investors flocked to the stock on April 4, driving it up 64% ($12.83 each) to $33.39, suggesting they believe the price could go higher. GCI stock continued to rise on April 5, trading at $35.68 each (up 7%) that afternoon.

Tracking stocks are a good vehicle for unlocking value of assets otherwise trapped in a larger public company — Liberty has used them to showcase programming and other assets, and other companies like Sprint, which issued a PCS tracker in the 1990s, used it to let shareholders participate in the rising value of its Personal Communications Service technology. But trackers can’t be merged into other entities — they need to be asset-backed. There are also some favorable debt connotations to converting a tracker into an asset-backed stock.

Wlodarczak said that while trackers can take on debt, any borrowing is usually backed by the parent company that created the tracker and actually owns the asset. Trackers can take on margin loans, which can be risky if the market drops. Having a security with hard assets that generate meaningful cash flow “makes it less risky to put higher value margin loans on those stakes in the event the market declines materially,” he said.

While GCI Liberty is attracting all the investor attention, FBN Securities analyst Robert Routh noted that the deal could also facilitate a long-awaited merger between rival retailers QVC and HSN. Liberty Interactive owns a 38% interest in HSN, and making the stock an asset-backed one could be the final piece of the puzzle in putting the two assets together.

PATH TO HSN-QVC
Routh said he expects QVC Group to begin buying back shares almost immediately — it has about $376 million remaining on its buyback authorization, and the analyst expects that to increase significantly. That new, asset-backed equity currency could also be “used in the future to effect a merger of QVC with HSN, something that should have happened years ago, at least in our opinion,” he wrote.

Liberty and Malone have been creating and unwinding tracking stocks for decades, dating back to the first iteration of Liberty Media back in the 1990s, a tracking stock that emerged after Malone’s sale of TCI to AT&T in 1999.

In the past several years, Liberty has converted a handful of trackers into asset-backed equities, including Liberty Starz, which became Starz in 2009 and was sold to Lionsgate Entertainment in 2015; and Liberty Entertainment, which in 2009 spun out its interest in DirecTV and created the Liberty Starz tracker. He’s also created a few: Formula One Group, the tracker that was formerly Liberty Media Group; Liberty Braves, which includes its interest in Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves; and Liberty Sirius, which includes its interest in Sirius XM Radio.

SIDEBAR: Tracking Malone
Cable legend John Malone has been a pioneer in the tracking stock concept and has created and unwound trackers for years. Here are just a few examples.

May 2006: Liberty completes its restructuring and issues two new tracking stocks, Liberty Capital Group and Liberty Interactive Group
March 2008: Liberty completes its reclassification of the Liberty Capital Group tracking stock and issues a new tracking stock for the Liberty Entertainment Group
November 2009: Liberty completes the split-off of Liberty Entertainment and business combination with DirecTV. The remaining businesses are redesignated as Liberty Starz Group.
August 2012: Liberty issues a new tracking stock, Liberty Ventures Group.
August 2014: Liberty Ventures completes the spin-off of its controlling interest in TripAdvisor Inc. and BuySeasons into a new asset backed stock; Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings.
July 2016: Liberty Ventures Group tracking stock completes the spin-off of its subsidiary, CommerceHub Inc., into a new asset-backed stock
November 2016: Liberty Ventures Group tracking stock completes the split-off of its interest in Expedia Inc. and its subsidiary Bodybuilding.com into a new asset backed stock, Liberty Expedia Holdings Inc.

SOURCE: Liberty Interactive

Liberty Interactive said it expects to complete the planned spin-off of its online sales company CommerceHub to shareholders of its other subsidiary, Liberty Ventures on July 13.

Liberty Interactive first announced the deal in November.

The move came after a flurry of deals that month by Liberty, including its plans to spin Liberty Braves, Liberty Media and Liberty Sirius into three separate tracking stocks. Those deals were completed earlier in the year. The CommerceHub shares won’t be trackers, they will be backed by hard assets. Liberty Interactive also as plans to spin off its 16% interest in online travel company Expedia at a later date.

According to the deal, Liberty Interactive will distribute shares of CommerceHub – CH Parent, CH Parent Series C and CH Parent Series C – as a dividend to Liberty Ventures shareholders on July 13. Liberty Ventures holders will receive 0.1 share of the corresponding series of CH Parent common stock and 0.2 share of CH Parent Series C common stock for each share of Liberty Ventures common stock held as of the record date.  

Liberty expects that CH Parent shares will begin “regular way” trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbols “CHUBA” and “CHUBK” and that CH Parent Series B shares will be quoted on the OTC Markets under the symbol “CHUBB” beginning July 14.

The moves were a part of a flurry of deals for Liberty Media on Thursday – earlier in the day the company said it would spin off three units – Liberty Braves Group, Liberty Media and Liberty Sirius – into three separate tracking stocks. 

CommerceHub (which helps clients with online sales channels) and Liberty Expedia (its Expedia online travel and Bodybulding.com fitness products sites) won’t be trackers, their shares will be backed by hard assets. According to Liberty, holders of Series A and Series B Liberty Venture shares would receive shares of the corresponding series of CommerceHub stock for every Liberty Venture share held. The same would hold true for Expedia shareholders.

CommerceHub founder Frank Poole will continue in his role as CEO of the company after the spin is completed in the first half of 2016.

"We believe the spin-offs should unlock value for our Liberty Ventures shareholders in an efficient manner and increase focus on the remaining attributed assets of Liberty Ventures,” Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei said in a statement.

Liberty Interactive expects that the Expedia Holdings Series A and Series B common stock will trade under the symbols LEXEA/B, respectively, and that the CommerceHub Series A and Series B common stock will trade under the symbols CHUBA/B, respectively, in each case, on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Following the completion of the Spin-Offs, the Liberty Ventures Group will be comprised of all of Liberty Interactive’s businesses and assets other than those attributed to the QVC Group, including its subsidiaries Evite, Inc. and LMC Right Start, Inc., its interests in FTD Companies, Inc., Lending Tree, Inc., Interval Leisure Group, Inc., Time Warner Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc., various green energy investments, the exchangeable senior debentures currently attributed to the Liberty Ventures Group and Liberty Interactive’s commitment to purchase $2.4 billion of Liberty Broadband Corporation’s Series C common stock in connection with (and contingent upon) the closing of the proposed merger of Charter Communications, Inc. and Time Warner Cable (subject to the exercise by Liberty Broadband of its right to reduce such commitment by up to 25%).

J.P. Morgan is acting as financial advisor to Liberty Interactive in connection with these transactions.

Floral giant FTD completed its acquisition of the floral and gifting business of Liberty Interactive unit Provide Commerce in a deal that will give Liberty a 35% interest in FTD.

Provide Commerce is now a wholly owned subsidiary of FTD. The two companies first announced the deal in July. As part of the transaction, FTD issued 10.2 million shares of its common stock and $144.7 million in cash to Liberty Interactive As of the Dec. 31 closing, FTD has approximately 29.2 million shares outstanding, with Liberty Interactive owning approximately 35% of FTD shares outstanding.

FTD’s management team will remain in place, with Robert Apatoff continuing as CEO and Robert Berglass continuing as chairman.

“We welcome the Provide Commerce team to the FTD family and look forward to bringing together Provide Commerce’s complementary collection of respected and highly recognizable e-commerce brands with ours. We will create one of the most compelling selections of floral and gifting products in the marketplace today, with greater convenience and choice for our customers,” Apatoff said in a statement. “Together, we will expand the breadth of our brands and pursue opportunities to further diversify our revenue streams. We will also look to open up additional avenues for growth and innovation, all with a goal of creating incremental value for FTD stockholders over time.”

In connection with the closing of the transaction, the FTD board expands from seven to 11 directors, with Liberty Interactive selecting four new members – former KPMG managing partner Candace Duncan; former Charter Communications EVP of programming and Hamilton Media principal Sue Ann Hamilton; Liberty Interactive vice president, corporate development Robin Pringle; and Liberty Media senior vice president and chief financial officer Chris Shean.

“We are excited to become the largest shareholder in FTD,” Liberty Interactive CEO Greg Maffei said in a statement. “Rob and his management team have built an impressive business and with the addition of the complementary businesses of Provide Commerce we are confident they will drive even greater value.”

Liberty Global, following in the footsteps of its chairman John Malone’s other media holdings, said it will establish a tracking stock for its Latin American operations, effectively splitting the company into two pure play media stocks, one (Liberty Global) focusing on European cable and the other on its assets in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Liberty Latin America and Caribbean (LiLAC) Group will initially include Liberty Global’s 100% interests in Chilean-based VTR GlobalCom SpA and VTR Wireless SpA, as well as its 60% interest in Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico LLC.

 “The creation of a tracking stock will highlight the value of our well-positioned operations in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries said in a statement. “This structure will enable us to retain the advantages of doing business as a single company, including the benefits of being able to leverage the expertise of our broader management team, our technology development program and our overall economies of scale. At the same time, we will be creating “pure-play” European and Latin American equities that we believe will be attractive to investors.”

The tracking stock structure has been a common one for Malone’s Liberty Media – earlier this month Liberty Interactive completed the split of Liberty Interactive into two trackers – QVC Group which houses its interest in the QVC and HSN shopping channels and Liberty Ventures, housing its electronic commerce assets.  The company also plans to spin its 26% interest in Charter Communications into the Liberty Broadband tracker next month.

Liberty Global said it expects to complete the LiLAC Group spins  in about five months. Liberty Global is the largest cable operator in Europe with about 23 million customers. It has about 1.3 million customers in Chile and 276,000 in Puerto Rico.

In connection with the creation of the LiLAC Group tracking shares, record holders of Liberty Global’s ordinary shares would receive one LiLAC Group Class A, Class B or Class C ordinary share for each 20 ordinary shares of Liberty Global Class A, Class B or Class C, respectively, held by them. Liberty Global expects that the LiLAC tracking shares will trade under the symbols “LILA,” “LILAB” and “LILAK,” respectively, on the NASDAQ Global Select Market. All of Liberty Global’s businesses not attributed to the LiLAC Group will be attributed to the Liberty Global Group. The Liberty Global Group shares will continue to trade under our current symbols “LBTYA,” “LBTYB” and “LBTYK,” respectively, on the NASDAQ Global Select Market.

Liberty Interactive took steps toward the ultimate spin-off of its QVC shopping channel into a separate tracking stock Friday, agreeing to move its digital commerce assets into a separate entity Liberty Ventures.

According to Liberty Interactive, digital assets worth about $1.5 billion -- Bodybuiding.com, Backcountry.com. CommerceHub, Evite, Provide Commerce and The Right Start – and $1 billion in cash were attributed to Liberty Ventures. In return Liberty Interactive shareholders will receive 67.67 million shares of Liberty Ventures common stock (0.14 shares of Liberty Ventures stock for each Liberty Interactive share they own). As a result, Liberty Interactive, which includes QVC and Liberty’s interest in rival shopping channel HSN, will change its name to QVC Group.

"We are excited to introduce the QVC Group which focuses on our leadership position in video commerce, enables a cleaner comparable analysis and provides for more targeted share repurchase and equity incentives," said Liberty Interactive CEO Greg Maffei in a statement. "The Liberty Ventures Group is projected to have over $2.7 billion in cash by year end which we can invest in a wide set of opportunities in TMT, including digital commerce."

In addition Liberty Interactive, currently traded on the NASDAQ Exchange under the symbol "LINTA," has applied to NASDAQ to change its symbol to "QVCA." The company said the effective date of the symbol change will be announced separately.

Liberty Interactive first announced plans to spin off the digtal assets and QVC last October.

Those plans were put on temporary hold after the company sold the flower and gifting portion of Provide Commerce to floral giant FTD in exchange for a 35% interest in the combined company.

Liberty Trip Advisor Holdings, the tracking stock that houses Liberty Interactive’s 22% interest in online travel site Trip Advisor and its stake in e-commerce company Buy Seasons, began trading on the NASDAQ Exchange Thursday under the symbols LTRPA and LTRPB, opening at a price of $37.36 per share.

According to Yahoo Finance, the stock had ranged in price from $34.40 each to $38.35 per share. It closed at $35.77 each.

Liberty Interactive said it completed the spin of TripAdvisor on Wednesday night (Aug. 27). According to terms of the spin, Shareholders of Liberty Ventures (which includes its minority interest in several programmers) received one share of Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings for each Liberty Ventures share they own.

Liberty Interactive isn’t finished on the spin-off front. The company plans to spin off its interests in home shopping channels QVC and HSN, Inc., into a separate tracking stock called QVC Group. A second tracker, called Liberty Digital Commerce, would hold its e-commerce businesses like Provide Commerce and Bodybulding.com . But since Provide Commerce struck a deal with florist FTD, those spin plans have been put on hold.  Earlier this year, Liberty also announced plans to create Liberty Broadband, which will hold its 27% interest in cable operator Charter Communications. 

Liberty Interactive said it will spin off its TripAdvisor online travel site to shareholders on Aug. 21.

The spin was originally part of a larger plan to spin off its QVC home shopping network and its digital commerce properties into two separate tracking stocks – QVC Group and Liberty Digital Commerce.  After those assets were spun off, Liberty Interactive had planned to spin TripAdvisor into a separate company – called TripAdvisor Holdings – as well. But although the QVC and Liberty Digital Commerce plans are on hold, the TripAdvisor deal is going forward.

Liberty Interactive said in late July that in light of its deal to sell the floral and gifting business of its Provide Commerce business to FTD – in turn acquiring a 35% interest in the combined company – it is “reevaluating the optimal structure and best alignment of the Liberty Digital Commerce group assets. As a result, the timing of the transition to the QVC Group has been delayed.”

In the TripAdvisor spin-off, Liberty will distribute one share of TripAdvisor Holdings Series A and Series B common stock for each share of Liberty Ventures common stock held. However, because NASDAQ has established Aug. 28 as the ex-dividend date of the distribution, and as a result of related "due bill" trading procedures, persons acquiring shares of Liberty Ventures common stock in the market through Aug. 27 will still receive shares of TripAdvisor Holdings common stock in the distribution. Liberty expects that the TripAdvisor Holdings Series A and Series B common stock will begin trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbols "LTRPA" and "LTRPB" beginning on Aug. 28. Following the Spin-off, TripAdvisor Holdings will hold Liberty's 22% economic and 57% voting interest in TripAdvisor, Inc., its BuySeasons business, corporate level cash and cash equivalents of $50 million and $400 million in debt.