AOL Deal Puts Malone Back on Shopping Spree

Another item on Liberty's shopping list could be all or part of Vivendi Universal Entertainment, the Vivendi subsidiary that operates Universal Pictures, theme parks and the USA Network and Sci Fi Channel programming channels, among other entertainment properties.

VUE, which Vivendi owns in conjunction with minority shareholders USA Interactive (USAI) and Barry Diller, is likely to be unloaded in some form by Vivendi, though the timetable on that process is unclear.

And yet another destination of the AOL Time Warner cash could be a share repurchase program. Gupta, for one, was rooting for that option Friday over any purchase by Liberty, on its own, of DirecTV or VUE assets. Those possibilities, wrote Gupta, "are less attractive means of shareholder value creation." Gupta, who owns Liberty shares and whose firm has received banking fees in the past year from Liberty, has an outperform rating on the company.

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