(Reuters) - John Malone's Liberty Media Corp (>> Liberty Media Corp) started the process of spinning off its cable assets through a stock dividend to its shareholders to form a new listed company called Liberty Broadband.
Liberty Broadband, in a regulatory filing, said on Friday the stock dividend would be worth up to $4.8 billion (2.82 billion pounds) and Malone would retain a voting interest of 47.3 percent.
Liberty Media shares were up 2 percent in premarket trading.
Liberty Media intends to offer its shareholders one share in the spun-off company for every four shares held, Liberty Broadband said. (http://1.usa.gov/1qDV4B0)
Berkshire Hathaway Inc (>> Berkshire Hathaway Inc.) and Comcast Corp (>> Comcast Corporation) are among Liberty Media's top shareholders.
Liberty Broadband will house Liberty's stake in Charter Communications (>> Charter Communications, Inc.), investments in Time Warner Cable (>> Time Warner Cable Inc) and the small location technology company True Position Technologies Inc.
The spin-off enables Liberty to eventually sell the asset but disadvantages include lengthy holding periods to keep the transaction tax efficient, Macquarie Research analysts wrote in a note.
The plan, first announced on May 8, is similar to how Liberty spun off television and movie channel Starz (>> Starz) last year. The complicated stock structure was designed to be tax efficient.
Liberty Media shares closed at $48.94 on the Nasdaq on Thursday.
(Reporting by Soham Chatterjee and Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Sriraj Kalluvila)