Media representatives were barred from attending yesterday's Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) shareholder meeting, but that hasn't stopped details from trickling out.
Sirius Buzz's Spencer Osborne, in attendance as a shareholder, reports that the company is thinking changing its ticker symbol to SXM to better reflect the name of the combined company. Osborne also points out how a decent chunk of the meeting was devoted to sizing up Liberty Media's (Nasdaq: LMCA) recent moves that have increased its effective stake in the satellite-radio company to 46.2%.
"If John Malone or anyone else wants to buy that stock, there is nothing we can do," Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin said of Liberty Media's Malone, as retold by this morning's The Wall Street Journal. "But I don't want them to get control of the company that way without paying a premium."
This has been a problem for Sirius XM investors. The stock ran up earlier this year on hopes that Liberty Media would try to gain control of the company. They may have thought Sirius XM would have to pay a juicy markup for control, but Liberty Media seems content in taking opportunistic nibbles as it petitions the FCC for de facto control of Sirius XM.
Meat of the meeting
Although media reps weren't invited, Sirius XM did file the slide presentation it used during the meeting with the SEC. Let's go over some of the more interesting nuggets.
- Sirius XM is now the country's second largest U.S. subscription media businesses. The 22.3 million basic paid accounts it had at the end of March was surpassed only by Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX), with 23.4 million subscribers.
- Sirius XM generated more revenue during the first three months of this year than Clear Channel Radio and Pandora (NYSE: P) combined.
- Sirius XM's retention rate is lower than that of the two largest satellite-television providers, but its churn is a lot lower than that of Netflix and premium movie channels.
Running of the bulls
I remain bullish on Sirius XM's future. It should come as no surprise that I'm promoting the CAPScall initiative for accountability by reiterating my bullish call on Sirius XM for Motley Fool CAPS.
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