Things never get dull for the country's lone satellite-radio provider. Shares of Sirius XM Radio (SIRI 0.98%) were unchanged heading into the final trading day of the week, before matching the Nasdaq's 2.15% slide on Friday.
The company also announced that it will release its fourth quarter results on Feb. 4. It will also make next week's birthday bash for Howard Stern available for free anywhere in the world, and it firmed up its due diligence in response to Liberty Media's (FWONA) takeover proposal.
Let's take a closer look.
Yearning for earnings
Sirius XM will post fresh financials in 10 days. The company has already divulged how many subscribers it had at the end of the quarter, but naturally the market will want to see how it's holding up everywhere else.
Analysts see Sirius XM posting a profit of $0.02 a share, matching the prior year's bottom-line performance. They also see revenue climbing to $981.4 million. Sirius XM is closing in on its first $1 billion quarter, but that will probably have to wait until the second quarter of this year.
Stern embrace
One of Stern's traditions when he was on terrestrial radio, a celebrity-studded birthday celebration, is making its way to Sirius XM on Friday. In an interesting move, Sirius XM announced on Wednesday that the Jimmy Kimmel-hosted affair will be made available to anyone in the world for free through its siriusxm.com website.
It's going to be a pretty big deal. Jon Bon Jovi, Louis C.K., Davide Letterman, Sarah Silverman, John Fogerty, and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler have already agreed to be a part of the fete. Making it available as a worldwide stream for free will help grow global awareness for the brand and help the media giant push the service to potential new users closer to home.
It's a smart move all around.
Give them Liberty
The market's generally been unimpressed with Liberty Media's lowball offer to absorb Sirius XM into its bloodstream, but now the special committee of board members assigned to review the proposal is expanding its research efforts.
Sirius XM announced on Friday that the committee has retained Evercore Group to serve as its financial advisor and Weil, Gotshal & Manges to be its legal counsel in evaluating the deal. Investors seem generally skittish about accepting non-voting Liberty Media shares without a healthier premium, but we'll see what the third-party advisors think.
