Satellite radio companies Sirius and XM Radio have agreed to merge in a “tax-free, all-stock merger of equals with a combined enterprise value of approximately $13 billion, which includes net debt of approximately $1.6 billion” according to the release. Each company would have roughly half of the new company. I’m not sure what the new entity will be called, but Mel Karmazin, currently CEO of SIRIUS, would become CEO and Gary Parsons, currently chairman of XM, would be chairman. The deal took months to pull off and likely will take many more as they seek federal approval for the merger. They hope to close the deal by the end of 2007.
Both companies have made tentative steps into the mobile music arena, Sirius in a deal with Sprint and XM talking with handset manufacturers about putting in satellite receiving capabilities. Hosted by MobiTV, XM Radio Mobile is being streamed by Cingular. Sirius has also considered mobile video.
Our sister site PaidContent has all the details of the proposed merger.
Subscriber content
?
Subscriber content comes from Gigaom Research, bridging the gap between breaking news and long-tail research. Visit any of our reports to learn more and subscribe.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments have been disabled for this post