Liberty Media’s three new trackers had a mixed debut on the NASDAQ stock exchange Monday, with Liberty Braves Group and Liberty Media Corp. falling sharply while its Liberty Sirius tracker rose more than 10%.
Liberty completed its recapitalization into three trackers on Friday – Liberty Braves Group, including its interest in the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball team; Liberty Sirus, including its interest in Sirius XM satellite radio; and Liberty Media, its other assets including ecommerce companies bodybulding.com and its minority holdings in Time Warner Inc. and Viacom. Liberty first announced the intention to spin the units in November.
In the recapitalization, , each issued and outstanding share of Liberty's existing common stock was reclassified and exchanged for one share of the corresponding series of Liberty SiriusXM common stock, 0.1 of a share of the corresponding series of Liberty Braves common stock and 0.25 of a share of the corresponding series of Liberty Media common stock.
The trackers began trading on NASDAQ on April 18, under the symbols BATRA (Liberty Braves), LSXMA (Liberty Sirius) and LMCA (Liberty Media).
Liberty Braves opened at $36 per share but quickly plummeted in early trading Monday, closing at $19.95each, down 44.6% or $16.05 per share, followed by Liberty Media, which opened at $27.43 each but fell 31% ($8.40 each) to close at $19.03 each.
Liberty Sirius was the lone bright spot, rising 11.4% ($3.20 each) to close at $31.20 per share, up from its debut of $28 per share.
Tracking stocks are a common vehicle for Liberty to unlock the value of its holdings. In the past it has created trackers for its holdings in QVC Group and its Latin American cable holdings (LiLAC Group).
