Liberty Woos Media Veteran Carey To Chair F1

One of Rupert Murdoch's closest lieutenants is being sounded out about becoming the next chairman of Formula One (F1) motor racing under an audacious plan being hatched by a company backed by John Malone, the rival media tycoon.

Sky News has learnt that Liberty Media Corporation (NasdaqGS: BATRR - news) , which owns a broad range of media and entertainment assets, has approached Chase Carey, a long-standing DirecTV (EUREX: 19071070.EX - news) and News Corporation (Frankfurt: A1W048 - news) executive who continues to serve on the board of 21st Century Fox as its vice-chairman.

Sources said that Mr Carey had been floated by Liberty Media as a potential chairman of F1 during discussions it has held with the sport's executives and shareholders, who are led by CVC Capital Partners.

It was unclear on Friday whether any agreement had been reached between Liberty Media and Mr Carey about a future role, but insiders said that if appointed, his position would be unlikely to conflict with that of Bernie Ecclestone, F1's chief executive.

Mr Carey is also a non-executive director of Sky plc (Frankfurt: 893517 - news) - the owner of Sky News - which counts 21st Century Fox as its single-largest shareholder.

He took on a non-executive role as 21st Century Fox's vice-chairman and a consultant to the company last month.

Liberty Media Corporation, part of Mr Malone's sprawling asset portfolio, consists of assets held through three so-called tracking stocks: the Liberty Braves Group, the Liberty Media Group and the Liberty SiriusXM Group.

Collectively, the trio own minority interests in media companies such as Time Warner Inc (Xetra: AOL1.DE - news) and Viacom Inc (Frankfurt: A0HM1Q - news) , the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball club, and Sirius XM (NasdaqGS: SIRI - news) , the satellite radio group.

Liberty Media Corp, which declined to comment on its approach to Mr Carey, published second-quarter results on Friday.

It is one of several groups preparing offers to buy significant stakes in F1, with an outcome valuing the sport at around $8.5bn (£6.5bn) likely to emerge within the next month.

Unusually, Liberty Media is bidding against Liberty Global (Frankfurt: A1W0FL - news) and Discovery Communications (Frankfurt: DC6.F - news) - which have teamed up and also have Mr Malone's backing - on a bid for an F1 stake.

The Qatari owner of the Paris Saint-Germain football team - Qatar Sports Investment - has also re-emerged as a possible partner of one of the bidding groups.

Liberty Media could use one of the existing tracker stocks or create a new one as partial consideration for the acquisition of part or all of F1, although the details of any deal have yet to be finalised.

CVC (Taiwan OTC: 4744.TWO - news) has been running a process for several months to offload a significant shareholding in F1, which could - depending upon the identity of the buyer - result in the sport changing control for the first time in more than a decade.

Sky News revealed in May that Silver Lake, the private equity firm which owns the talent management agency WME-IMG, was also looking at F1, although its recent takeover of the Ultimate Fighting Championship series is thought to have dampened its appetite to pursue an imminent deal.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Sky plc, the owner of Sky News, was in active talks about buying a stake in F1, although that prospect has been played down by advisers familiar with the matter.

In recent weeks, unexpected names such as Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news) have been rumoured to be interested in buying the sport.

QSI's re-emergence as the potential owner of a shareholding in the sport comes 13 months after it joined forces with Stephen Ross, the owner of the Miami Dolphins, to pursue a takeover of F1.

Sources said Mr Ross could also become involved in the final phase of the auction, which is currently focused on selling a minority stake.

‎CVC's investment in F1 has been extraordinarily lucrative, earning it billions of dollars in dividends and proceeds from the sale of a string of minority stakes to investors including Norway's sovereign wealth fund and BlackRock (Sao Paolo: BLAK34.SA - news) , the world's biggest asset manager.

CVC is the biggest individual shareholder in Delta Topco, F1's parent, while Waddell & Reed, a US-based fund manager, owns just over 20%.

In sporting terms, F1 - which in the UK is broadcast by companies including Sky (Amsterdam: BK8.AS - news) - endured a difficult start to 2016 amid controversy over the format used for race-qualifying.

However, a tense battle at the top of the drivers' championship featuring the Mercedes (Xetra: 710000 - news) teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg has stoked renewed interest in this year's series.

Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) is advising CVC on the talks with prospective buyers of a shareholding in F1.

Spokeswomen for Liberty Media Corporation and 21st Century Fox declined to comment.