QVC Group Inc. (QVCAQ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

If everyone can please take their seat, we're going to go ahead and get started here with our first session of the afternoon. Thanks to everyone for being here. I'm Brett Feldman. I'm the firm's lead telecom, cable and media analyst. Sitting right next to me is Steve Laszczyk, who covers the entertainment sector, and Greg Maffei needs no introduction. Greg, thank you so much for being here with us at our Communacopia & Technology Conference.

Thank you for having me.

So we're going to get into some of the themes and portfolio companies, but maybe just remind everyone, at a high level, the principal assets in your portfolio, the principal themes that the company is investing around.

Well, I'm not sure we have total themes, but there are 2 places where we probably have put the most recent emphasis a lot around live events. And certainly, that -- there's an element of that at Formula 1, obviously, Live Nation. And then I think we've become relatively large, by some measures, the largest investor in sporting assets, right, because Formula 1, again, but also the Atlanta Braves if you take our broader portfolio of assets where we've been putting on capital to work.

Great. So I want to dig into Liberty Broadband a little bit. Charter, which is one of the biggest investments that you have in that portfolio, has really been driving its go-to-market strategy around this converged product bundle, Spectrum One. They've had a traction, particularly on the wireless side. We've been asking a lot of Chris Winfrey's peers here at the conference how they think about convergence, which we're like 20 years into. What's your take on it? Do you think of convergence as being mostly a product strategy? Or do you think it's ultimately a network strategy?

Well, in this case, I think it's both, right, because you're leveraging the power of the broadband network that we have, includes the mobile offering. Something like 85% to 90% of all the data that goes through mobile actually spends their time on -- more time and it's pumped through that fixed wireline network. So you've seen this in Europe, a convergence of networks. But I also think you're seeing is a convergence of the product offering as Spectrum One is offering broadband subscribers the chance to have mobile for a period free and then have, even post that free period, a very attractive price relative to other mobile offerings. And we're on the Verizon network with the opportunity over time to go get owner economics where it's most attractive. So I think this actually fits very well at merging both the product side and the network side.

So on owner's economics, do you think that ultimately means that Charter, and really just U.S. cable companies, if they want to scale in wireless, they're going to have to own and operate more traditional mobile infrastructure?

No. I think what they're going to do is we have a very attractive MVNO deal, which is a permanent relationship with Verizon. We've already renegotiated that once downward for better rates. But I think where we have sufficient amounts of traffic and where we have our CBRS spectrum, and you've seen us buy that up where we believe we will have a sufficient amount of traffic, we can go get those owner economics that are attractive. It is not attractive to build a network in Montana. I love Montana, but rural Montana is not a great market relative to what the cost of the build-out is. On the other hand, there may be places in Denver, which are very attractive to build out. There may be places in Texas where we have a lot of mobile customers -- or excuse me, where we have a lot of cable customers and very attractive to build out.

You've noted that the MVNO deal that Charter has with Verizon is very attractive. Comcast has the exact same deal. They are partnered, to a certain extent, in developing wireless. Do you think there should be an even greater partnership? Is there more that Comcast and Charter could be doing together to further their converged strategies?

Well, I think Comcast and Charter are working very well together, as you point out, because there always could be more. I credit Comcast really led the development of many of these mobile strategies. I think, today, Charter is probably the more aggressive pursuer. If you look of the postpaid net adds, I think, in the last quarter, 37% of the whole market went to Charter. Over -- almost close to 50 went to cable. So it's being -- it's quite effective in terms of growing share of market now. Could we do more? I guess you can always do more together, but the relationship between those 2 companies has never been better.

What do you think is going to be the ultimate way that investors will be able to assess whether this existing converge and wireless strategy is working for Charter? And I'll give you a little bit more of a specific point. So Mike Sievert from T-Mobile was here earlier today. We were talking about cable. We said, listen, they seem to be winning with a value proposition based on very low service pricing. And his response was, and he said a version of this before, "We think they're actually expanding the postpaid market," meaning that the customers that are going to Comcast and Charter are not necessarily customers that may have gone to T-Mobile or Verizon or AT&T. He's kind of suggesting they might not be the highest quality customers. So what do you ultimately look at to assess that you're bringing customers into the cable companies that really expand the business?

That's a funny answer to me, to be honest. I'm not sure I follow that because if you look, we're not talking about low-end renters who might have been prepaid mobile customers. We're talking about people who buy a fixed broadband line. You can't just go buy a mobile service. You have to buy a broadband line as well. So that does not seem logical off the top of my head. I'd love to talk to Mike about it further, but that doesn't seem as logical to me. And there's no reason in terms of what we've seen for churn or bad debt, suggesting that these are unattractive customers. We are, to be fair, in a period where a lot of those customers are on free mobile, but they are paying us for the broadband today. So, in that sense, I'm not sure I follow.

Do you think it would make sense to see the cable MVNOs get more aggressive with their go-to-market? And just to be more specific about that, they already have really attractive surface pricing. But the typical go-to-market playbook for the big guys is, "Here is a free phone or a discounted phone. Here's free Netflix." It's a very expensive way of acquiring customers. Do you think someone like Charter can do that?

Look, anybody can throw money and we have the balance sheet to throw money at the problem. I think BYOD and trying to minimize financing handsets is a more attractive strategy. And as I already pointed out, our growth, without having to do those handset subsidies, is much outpacing the growth of the other players. Nobody grew as many postpaid subs over the last year as we have. So I don't think that's right. Now we'll see the proof could be in the pudding in Q4, Q1 next year when we really start charging for those, whether that's true. But even on any basis, you look out there, you can say our market is very attractive -- sorry, our pricing is very attractive even without the handset subsidies.

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Yes, yes, take...

We'll get started again.

All right.

Sorry for that commercial break. Let's pivot over to video. And we're going to have Chris Winfrey tomorrow, and so he'll be talking a lot. But I'm curious...

By the way, I thought he did a great job on his conference call, outlining our position and why we thought it made sense. I thought that Charter was quite articulate.

Well, that's what I wanted to get your stance on as well. I mean what do you think the model, the video model is ultimately turning into? And how -- what is the necessary change in the relationship between the MVPDs and the programmers?

Look, we're moving to a world where if the cable bundle is not eliminated, it will be a substantially smaller subset of customers whoever subscribed to it. And we're moving to a world where streaming and on-demand is going to be a larger and larger set. And today's MVPDs are the biggest distributors of the cable networks' product. It would seem logical that they should have a role going forward in distribution of all the content that Disney or any other cable network players produce. And I think Charter put forward a very logical proposal about how we can be involved in that in a way that made sense for both parties. Obviously, Disney has not yet come to the same conclusion.

If Disney doesn't budge, would it be rational for Charter to actually just stop doing business with Disney?

Look, it may not be the case that we are not economically hurt today, but it's inevitable if you look at current course and speed, and we are the slowest declining video provider out there. You know the math. And I think we've declined at something like 2.5% over the last few years. Many players -- many of the major other players are applying it double digits or 9% or higher on the cable side. So we're the best of the video providers in terms of just holding on to video subscribers, but the profitability of that continues to decline. And the question is whether it's unprofitable now or in 2 years or 5 years. It's inevitable. With current course and speed, it is. So this is a -- you're watching evolution occur. The only question is, has the evolution been accelerated?

Got it. Well, listen, Steve, why don't you pick up from here and we can touch on a few other portfolio companies?

Yes, absolutely. So Greg, you mentioned earlier that you're one of the largest investors in sports. Live sports content continues to be very desirable by the distributors. That said, we're seeing some evolution in how the bundle, the live TV bundle is progressing. I'm curious, how do you think the sports media distribution ecosystem evolves over the next decade as that linear bundle perhaps breaks apart?

Well, I think it's going to be interesting to watch in the sense that, look, all sports properties have a desire for maximum reach and maximum revenue. And those 2 thoughts are not always consistent. In many cases, you can get an over-the-air provider who gives you full reach and you can get a premium provider who gives you more revenue. And to try and find that balance is critical. That's going to be harder and harder because there are going to be fewer people who can provide you both reach and that revenue. So that tension -- and you're seeing, obviously, ESPN, which has been a great asset, and as our partner at Formula 1, has declined from, I don't know, 105 million households to 75 million households, something like that. So how do you find that full reach and still get paid? I think you're going to continue to see that fragmentation. And you're already seeing in cases like college football, where it's so much harder to say where are you going to watch -- where do you find this game and where do you find that game? And I think that's going to be a challenge for consumers, and it will put the crimp potentially on sports rights valuations.

Well, let's talk about one sport particularly close to home that has increased reach quite substantially over the last number of years: Formula 1. Incredible success. Global popularity has increased. Financially, we've seen a big inflection as well. The question I get a lot from investors is, what are the biggest opportunities ahead for F1? And what drives the next level of financial growth from here for the sport?

Well, I think you're going to see Vegas be a great financial success. And so that's going to be a big uptick. Will we maximize revenues and profitability in 2023? No, I think that's going to be something that we're moving quickly. We're spending capital to get a great product, a great fan experience and a great spectacle that will sell well for Formula 1 for the long term. But I think we're going to have increased profitability in Vegas in the years to come. So that's our goal. That's a driver. Other places, we continue to see upticks in what we are paid for media properties. My -- our prior comments notwithstanding, we are somebody who's at the early part of the cycle. And if you look at what our revenues are in most countries, and particularly the U.S. relative to the scale of many other sports properties, it feels like we have a long way to go. If you look at what we've been able to do among promoter fees, promoters have been able, because of demand, to increase their scale and raise prices and get more revenue. And that's allowed us to charge them more. And we've been able to have cases where we played off one promoter versus another in a country to get the best deal. So I think there's still room on the promoter side based on increased demand and increased pricing. And then some of the ancillary other revenue streams like hospitality -- excuse me, like advertising and sponsorship first, we've had great growth, but I don't think we've maximized that. And hospitality, licensing, some of these other revenue streams, which are fairly nascent, I think still have a lot of upside.

You mentioned the opportunity in Las Vegas. I think in the past, you've stated that's a $500 million revenue opportunity for you, profitability, top 5, Grand Prix. It seems like there are more opportunities to add events in and around the Las Vegas Grand Prix in years 2, 3, 4 and beyond. What's the way investors should be thinking about long-term revenue, long-term profitability growth of that race versus year 1?

Yes, I still think it's going to be a top 5 and maybe can work its way higher into the top 3. We will have ancillary revenue streams and ancillary events around Vegas. Vegas is going to start on Wednesday night and run until Sunday morning. You'll see many events now, but there were more plans that, frankly, were hard to pull off in our first year that I expect in years 2, 3 and beyond, we're going to have to grow that revenue stream. So I'm quite bullish that the revenue in Vegas will go up from that in that $500 million number.

The other main topic that investors have asked about this year is viewership and competition. Viewership growth, I think, has been a little bit lower than some have expected, and I think there's a concern that competition with Red Bull and Verstappen running away with the season is one part of that equation. First, do you agree with this? And then maybe taking a step back, thinking about media rights more holistically, how much does viewership matter in the equation of driving higher media rights?

Yes, I think you need to look at overall interest in the sport. And by so many other measures, viewership is a little tough. We've had many successes this year. I think 3 of the top 4 races here in the United States were all this year in terms of viewership. And our average viewership is up year-over-year. But nonetheless, for some of the reasons we talked about a cord-cutting and there could be a specific circumstance like last year, Miami was standing alone. This year, it was up against a Miami Heat game in the playoffs. Those particular circumstances can drive viewership of a race. If you take the totality of interest as measured by growth not only in linear TV with all the challenges we just talked about, but how much we've grown Instagram, YouTube views, TikTok views, the amount of interest in the sport has only catapulted it much greater than double digits. So I'm convinced our demand is very high. And when we had bidding last year for the sport, we had enormous interest from multiple players. And we already have players. We cut a relatively short-term deal here in the U.S., 3 years. We already have players asking us, how do we get in for the next one, early on. So I remain quite certain that broadcasters and other kinds of services are very interested in the Formula 1 product, given its growth and given the interest in the category.

Outside of the U.S., are there any markets where you're seeing the demand and the number of bidders for F1's media rights increased notably?

Well, you've seen streaming players in Europe come in and bid in certain countries. I think you're going to see both international players and U.S. players, U.S. technology companies express interest. So I think that could be on a market-by-market basis, we could see different flavors of that occur.

Does the competitive dynamic playing out the season concern you at all? And in terms of engagement or viewership, is there anything you can do over the near term to perhaps address some of the disparity between Verstappen and the midfield?

Yes, the midfield is quite interesting, and we can show statistically there's more overtaking that's ever occurred. The challenge, obviously, is Max Verstappen is having an unbelievable year, a record-setting year. Stefano Domenicali is rightly trying to pivot and say, "Come watch this historic event. You've never seen success like this. You don't want to miss it." We'll see if that works. But the reality is we have a very attractive competitive product other than the fact that Max is that fast. Short of breaking his leg ala Tonya Harding. I'm not sure what we can do about that. But he's a phenom. He's driving what seems to be the fastest car and he's driving it very well. If you look at the lines he's taking, how aggressive those lines are, but how well he's able to navigate them, it is truly stunning. And you can see statistically why he is faster than anybody else.

Within F1, the other component of the narrative right now is the Concorde Agreement. It's not up until the current one has been up until 2025. It seems like there's interest from your side and potentially renegotiating it sooner. Could you comment on how you'd like investors to think about the timing of the next round of renegotiations, what F1 wants out of the renegotiation, what do you feel like the teams want and what do you hope will be achieved?

Look, historically, the Concorde agreement was a snot-gobbling fight and never got signed until after the season had already ended and they were operating backwards on what they were getting paid. We got it done this time, and we're trying to change the dynamic. And I credit, first, Chase Carey, and now, Stefano. We changed the dynamic with the teams where we are far more aligned. That doesn't mean they want to pay us more, but they all agree in the value that we're doing together and that growing the pie has been a positive thing for everybody. And providing stability and certainty about where we're going is a benefit to them. You've seen the value of Formula 1 rise dramatically as we've grown EBITDA. But the reality is the team's valuations have increased much faster. They see the benefit of the regime that we together created. They see the benefit of extending that deal. And what we're basically talking about is an early renewal of a deal that is very similar to -- on the terms that they have today. Why we think that's a benefit? I think we can all sell sponsors, we can sell broadcasters, we can sell all people on the certainty of the sport and you derisk any of the potential of the future. I think they have the opportunity to go out and sell the same sponsors on those ideas. So all of that is why everyone sort of wants to extend the current regime, and I think we've seen good interest on that.

You mentioned the split between the teams and the league. I think today, the teams keep something around 62% of pre-team share adjusted OIBDA. Is there a scenario where the splits can become more balanced or even 60-40 in the favor of F1, and it's still be a win-win scenario for everyone, including the teams?

Yes. If you look over the last 5 years, that percentage has gone down. That's largely due to the fact that we have -- there is a number at which we kick into a higher percentage. We traded them a floor and said we would guarantee x amount of payouts, but above a certain percentage we're betting on ourselves, and if we get to that percentage of pre-team EBITDA, we'll take a larger split. What's happened is we've grown the sport is that the amount above that split number has grown, so our share has grown. I don't anticipate a major change in how that works. There'll probably be something along the same lines, and we'll have an incentive to grow the business. They have grown EBITDA dramatically. We've just because of the success and believing in the product and believing in ourselves and able to grow it faster, and I expect that's going to be a similar construct in any kind of concrete extension.

On Formula 1 capital allocation, you had some news earlier today, the acquisition of 90% of QuintEvents at a valuation of $313 million. This plays pretty well into the hospitality and premium experience trend that we've seen more broadly throughout the Live Events portfolio, Live Nation, included F1 Paddock Club, et cetera. Could you maybe talk a little bit about the acquisition, why bring it in-house under Formula 1? And what opportunities do you see to expand the business?

Yes, I think there were several. First, Quint has done a great job in creating F1 experiences of their high-end hospitality, things like giving you an opportunity to have dinner on Thursday night on the track, set up a dinner. Things like getting garage tours. Things like Hot Laps, allowing you to get in cars which are just a step below Formula 1 and have someone drive you around the track and simulate the experience of being a Formula 1 driver. All of those things have allowed them to have a great network and a great database of who are high-end customers, reaching out, knowing how to sell them. They've also done that across other sports. They do things like the Kentucky Derby with Churchill Downs. They do the NBA All-Star game and other sports like that. We see both enormous opportunity for them to help us extend our capabilities and sell to our customers around Formula 1, improve our hospitality experiences, but also an opportunity to leverage the strengths we have and sell into other kinds of sports. If you look at the high-end experiences get created in Formula 1, they are relatively unique compared to what you can get in most other sports. We think that opportunity exists to extend that to other sports. We think Quint does a great job, and we can help accelerate them. I expect the acquisition will be financially accretive day 1, and I expect that Quint will grow faster than Formula 1 with our help.

That's helpful. Maybe beyond Quint and thinking about M&A strategically for the F1 tracking group. What else interests you? What other assets do you feel like are appealing? What does the pipeline look like at this point?

Look, there is no sports asset that's out there that we haven't looked at or thought about or have been approached about. And we, because of the strength of the Formula 1 team and what they've done and the strength of frankly what the Atlanta Braves have done in creating probably the best experience in baseball, both on the field with the best record in baseball but also off the field with what exist at Truist Park and what is the battery of the real estate development around it, we probably have created the most stable baseball franchise in terms of profitability as well as the one that's likely to win its sixth straight NL East title. Leveraging that expertise and trying to sell that across other kinds of sports is appealing. And we have looked at other franchises. We haven't found the one yet that makes sense, but there are several we're in discussions with that we think we could be additive to and we'd be very attractive.

Maybe last one on capital allocation for F1. I believe even after the acquisition of Quint, the structure will still be underlevered on a liquidity over the next couple of years. Is there an opportunity to ramp share repurchases? Or do you find value, high value in keeping some of the liquidity for potential M&A?

Well, I think we had the opportunity to both. Frankly, we have a strong currency if we needed to do a really large acquisition. But above all, we have a huge free cash flow generation. So on top of the strong balance sheet, I think we could replenish whatever we did. I do think there's an opportunity to share repurchase. We have done share repurchase both directly by buying back stock. I think we bought some in the 50s. But also, we've done some effectively by repurchasing in-the-money converts, which were effectively an equity repurchase. And so I do think that will be one of our means of distributing value to shareholders over the next several years because of the strong balance sheet and the free cash flow generating capabilities despite the opportunities we see.

Let's talk about Braves. You mentioned best team in the NL at this point. Best, I reckon, in all baseball.

At all baseball. Don't -- yes...

And favorites to win the World Series.

I don't know if they're favorites, but we have a good team.

Our friends in Vegas say that they are the favorites. On the field performance has been great. Could you update us on the financial performance? In and around the ballpark, what you're seeing as we head into the fall on ticket sales per caps, leasing around the battery, how the consumer is performing in and around that.

Got it. Look, if you look across -- I'll make the broader comment. If you look across our portfolio, we see a lot of what high-end consumers are doing, whether it be ticketing at Live Nation and what's happening there, what we see at Formula 1 and what we see at the Atlanta Braves. And we do not yet see weakness as forecast in consumer spending, certainly in discretionary high-end items. The Braves are enormously successful at thinking about how to do things like modulate pricing, so they have dynamic pricing take advantage. They have the highest yield, running about 94% of the stadium. I think they've sold out around 50, 60 games. They are -- have been able to drive sponsorship interest up. Every metric is working very well. Per caps at the ballpark are up. They've done a lot to -- that's a function both of pricing, but it's also a function of increasing throughput through better automation. On every level, really the Braves are excellent at sort of thinking about how to create the best fan experience and how to maximize revenue in a way that's not offensive to them because we still -- we don't have the highest ticket prices to get that done.

Within the Braves, the regional sports business model has been under some pressure over the last couple of years, given the accelerated pace of cord-cutting. To what extent do you think the Braves could be affected by this pressure to an increasing degree over the next couple of years? And perhaps more broadly, how do you see the distribution model around regional sports evolving?

Yes. The RSNs is a challenged business. There's no doubt. The bankruptcy of Diamond Valley, the Sinclair subsidiary, has given them an opportunity to reject certain executory contracts that they have with teams. They have not done that with the Braves. We've been paid our full monies for 2023. By all reports, we have heard and we understand, and it makes sense because I'll explain in a second. We are the most profitable RSN that Valley has. Why? All the reasons why we have high fan interest. We have 14 million broadband subscribers. That's the largest baseball territory. We have a good deal in terms of what they pay us, but it's not a great deal. It's certainly not what the Dodgers get paid or what other franchises get paid. So we would love, of course, more, but the fact that it's a relatively middle of the road deal in what is the best baseball territory has meant that we believe Valley is still quite profitable and is likely not to reject our contract, but continue to operate the RSN. If for whatever reason, we are wrong, all the things I indicated about the demand in that territory give me confidence that we would be able to find an attractive financial alternative. Would we get as much as the roughly $100 million we get today? TBD. But it's kind of perverse. Baseball teams don't seem to trade on actual earnings. We are consistently the most profitable team. Maybe the Astros do well. Whoever wins the World Series could do particularly well. But in consistent profitability, we're certainly in the top 2 or 3. And I don't think valuations are largely set on that. I do worry if you had a collapse, would we be able to still be a profitable team? Whatever we create because we have both the monies that we're getting out of the battery and because of the strength of our baseball business, I'm very confident, even if you wiped out Valley tomorrow on that contract, whatever we replace it with, we would still be among the 5 or 10 most profitable teams even with a very low basis on that RSN deal. So I think we're relatively well protected. Thinking about the longer term, I think there's going to be a transition of that RSN model, and you'll have much more direct-to-consumer. Will that replace all the revenue streams? I think it will take a while. I have to tell you, Terry McGuirk, who is the CEO of the Braves, is way more optimistic than I am, and that's good. I want an optimistic guy driving the business. He thinks we can easily replace that money. But over time, I think it will be the case that -- and strong teams will find ways to monetize digitally and direct with the consumer in a way that's attractive.

You recently spun Braves out into an asset-backed security. Reception from the market has been very positive. I'm curious if you could just high level remind us why you decided to do a timing around it? And then by extension, if you see a similar opportunity over at F1 to do something similar.

I think we get it to just create optionality. Having an asset-backed security allowed us to get a fuller valuation. I don't -- we have no plan or intent to do anything with that, but it does if we eventually ever were to consummate a sale of the Braves. It would allow us to avoid corporate-level tax and only be taxed at the shareholder level, which is more attractive. I don't think that is a current plan or intent at F1. And I would argue that F1's valuation has been pretty good as a multiple of dividend and free cash flow compared to most other sports properties. So I don't think being a tracking stock is impeding our valuation at F1 today.

Thanks for that. Pivoting over to Liberty SIRI. Real quickly, you cleaned up the Liberty SiriusXM structure as part of the reclassification earlier this summer. Liberty now owns over 83% of SiriusXM. You said in the past that sooner or later, these 2 assets would likely to be combined. Maybe just to get everyone up to speed. Could you talk about what a potential combination between the 2 assets could look like or how it could be structured and if there's any structures that are most -- likely are most -- more straightforward and was common in your mind to be pursued?

The -- you can imagine a variety of ways, including an RMT, Reverse Morris Trust, where we spun our shares out into a NewCo and the shareholders became shareholders of that NewCo. Our current shareholders in LSXM became shareholders in that NewCo. You can imagine a scenario under certain cases where we dividended out our shares because we're over 80%. We can do that in a tax-free manner. We would have to deal with the debt at LSXM because we couldn't leave that stranded. You can imagine a scenario where we spun LSXM off to be its own asset-backed company, and that might enable a further consolidation. Or you can imagine a scenario which LSXM purchased the remaining 17% of the shares that are standing in the public's hands today. That's sort of probably the range of alternatives. I think that's going to come down to, in many cases, what the independent directors at SiriusXM find most attractive for their shareholders and what combination works for them and us in a way that is compelling.

As part of that Liberty SIRI, you received a little over $300 million a year from dividends from SiriusXM. As you look out over the next 12 months, what do you see as the best use of capital at this moment?

If you imagine that these 2 companies are likely to be combined, and I think that is the most likely scenario, utilizing the bulk of that cash to pay down our LSXM debt and project what a combined balance sheet would look like suggest that it makes most sense to do that. And today, the leverage, which at SiriusXM is running something like 3.4, would probably be in some combination if you just merge them would be over 4x. You probably want to do things in this market and try and bring that leverage down. So I suspect most of our cash flow is going to be utilized for debt reduction over the next 12, 18 months, maybe longer.

Is there a certain leverage target or leverage threshold that you would ideally like to target to get the deal done?

No, I just think you're in a market where because of the increasing cost of debt, just because of investor skittishness, perception at 4x even though it's a very stable business, low churn, all sorts of reasons why you could -- I believe it could sustain that, you probably want to do things to show you could quickly reduce that debt.

Moving to the newest tracking group in the Liberty family: Liberty Live. Your recent -- as part of the recent reclassification, you created Liberty Live, which has a 30% stake in Live Nation as well as some other smaller investments. Why create Liberty Live? And what other types of businesses or assets do you envision this tracking stock group going in?

Well, I think our first goal in creating Liberty Live was to create a pure LSXM whose only asset was cash and the shares of SiriusXM. From Liberty Live, I think you could imagine several paths doing things around hospitality that share between Formula One and Live Nation, things around the real estate assets that could be appealing. So I think we'll see Liberty Live as an evolving creature. It's probably early in its life cycle, only having been around a little more than a month. We'll see what our plans are for the longer term with it, but it clearly is an evolving animal.

Maybe earlier on this question, but how do you think about capital needs and capital sources over the couple of years?

Yes. I think your opening preface is that it's early to know. It really depends on what assets we end up with. Look, we've been somewhat lucky or creative in coming up with ways to finance. You look at how we bought Formula 1 by levering up our stake in Live Nation once and then issuing stock against the Formula 1 asset. We'll see. That required almost no outside capital. Then we went out and found outside capital to help monetize the shares that were held by CVC off Formula One. We'll see what path we go down with Live Nation -- or excuse me, Liberty Live that requires what those needs are.

Great. And then maybe just to wrap it up here in the last minute or 2 that we have, always a good question for you, Greg. But on M&A more broadly, Liberty has been increasingly prudent from an M&A perspective over the last few years, not doing as many deals as I think most of us are used to you doing. I think maybe looking ahead, what qualities or characteristics are you most looking for in a potential acquisition? And are there any particular areas where you're most excited about the opportunity at the moment?

Look, our historical model was we love all these subscription businesses with leverageable free cash flows. The reality is those businesses got bid up and were bid to unattractive levels in terms of new acquisitions. So we've had to molt our modeling and find other kinds of durable businesses. Live Nation is a durable asset in our -- in my mind. Formula 1 was a durable asset because of the strengths of the contracts it's had, the brand, all the reasons that there was a moat around that. So we continue to look for businesses that have attractive characteristics like that. You try and find them in places where other people didn't necessarily think they were because if it's obvious, they tend to get bid up. So the last few years, the market has bid up a lot of those kind of properties. Hopefully, we'll find ones that are -- we either have something to offer that is unique or a way to make them better or an angle that makes sense. .

Greg, we'll have to leave it there.

Thank you.

Thank you for taking the time. We appreciate it.

Thank you, guys. Thank you.