Collectively, the trio own minority interests in media companies such as Time Warner and Viacom, the Atlanta Braves Major League Baseball club, and Sirius XM, the satellite radio group.
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Other reports from within the F1 paddock suggest that CVC is also understood to still be negotiating with RSE Ventures, an investment firm run by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, working in tandem with a Qatari consortium, and another as yet unnamed private equity firm.
A sale would end years of speculation and rumours about a potential change of ownership for the motorsport.
Formula One’s chief executive Bernie Ecclestone reportedly told the German magazine that Liberty Media will transfer the first of the two tranches of payment in the $8.5 billion deal as early as Tuesday.
Liberty Media is in advanced talks with CVC partners, which owns a 35 per cent stake in the business.
Last night it emerged that Chase Carey, the executive vice-chairman of 21st Century Fox, would become chairman of F1. “So there is an very bad lot of speculation at this point in time”. “Liberty Media also owns a sizeable position in Live Nation, which could be leveraged with F1 in many ways”.
CVC had long wanted to publicly float the business and hoped to get a £5bn sale off the ground past year, but because of the opaque structure of the business insiders thought that a public sale was never likely. Ecclestone, who prefers to work alone, has so many deals rattling around inside his head that the probability is Liberty Media would retain his services, at least in the short term.
Formula One’s biggest shareholders are private equity firm CVC Capital Partners with a 35.5 percent stake and United States fund manager Waddell & Reed with 20.9 percent.
However, Horner has revealed that he doesn’t believe that is the case, and that he hopes the 85-year-old will continue in his duties next season. I don’t think anybody would buy that stake and spend that money and come in and say “we are not changing everything and we are doing it the American way”.
With the sport’s attraction to television audiences undermined by the recent domination of first Red Bull and now Mercedes, Liberty’s arrival was welcomed by key personalities in the pits.
“Bernie has done an awesome job, and made Formula One what it is”, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said.
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And America is not the only market in which Malone’s companies hold sway: Liberty Media may be headquartered in Colorado, but through sister company Liberty Global and a 29 per cent stake in Discovery Communications, Malone is also a key media influencer on an worldwide level.
