John Malone has long been a prominent name in the cable and satellite TV industry. This past week he resigned from his position as the DirecTV board chairman and gave up most of his voting control. The move was announced back in April in order to bring Malone and DirecTV into compliance with federal media ownership regulations.
The FCC ruled that Malone and his family could not continue to own a part of multiple TV signal providers in Puerto Rico. Malone’s family controls Liberty Global Inc. which owns Liberty Cablevision Puerto Rico.
In addition to Malone’s resignation, Paul Gould and Greg Maffei also stepped down from the DirecTV board. Michael D. White, the current President and CEO of DirecTV will take over as the chairman of the board. Elected to serve as board director is Samuel DiPiazza Jr.
The details of the satellite TV deal are this:
Malone and his wife have established trusts for their children and exchanged 21.8 million Class B shares for 26.5 Class A shares. The Class B shares have 15 votes each and the A class shares have just one. This brings Malone’s voting stake down from 24.3% to 3.
DirecTV is one of the largest satellite TV providers in the US and news of Malone’s resignation and share movement caused DirecTV’s stock to fall 3.9% on the day.