Sirius XM, Liberty Sirius stocks fall after Barclays downgrades
Shares of Sirius XM Holdings Inc. and holding company Liberty Media Corp. SiriusXM are down 2.1% and 1.7%, respectively, following downgrades at Barclays. Analyst Kannan Venkateshwar lowered his rating on Sirius XM to underweight from equal weight, and he reduced his rating on the Liberty tracking stock to equal weight from overweight. “While execution remains exceptional, in our view, we believe the company is now in a much more mature phase of its growth cycle and the story is changing,” Venkateshwar wrote. “Meanwhile, the room to buy back more stock is likely to become constrained, M&A may become a bigger priority, margin expansion may become tougher, and competitive pressures are likely to step up.” As for the tracking stock, Venkateshwar said that he still prefers LSXMA over the regular Sirius shares, but he said the NAV discount might close due to Sirius’s stock falling, not due to the tracking stock rising. “It is not surprising that Liberty has been looking at other uses of cash such as iHeart instead of buying more LSXMA stock,” he said. Sirius shares are up 31% over the past 12 months, while the tracking stock has gained 11%.
Source : MTV
