Liberty Media will be under new leadership next year.
The company has announced that CEO Greg Maffei will be stepping down when his contract expires at year’s end after nearly 20 years in the position. Liberty chairman John Malone will become the interim CEO and will work closely with the board of directors until a permanent replacement is in place.
Maffei, who will take a senior advisor role starting Jan. 1 to support management transition, will remain chairman of Qurate Retail, Liberty TripAdvisor, Tripadvisor and SiriusXM and stay on as a director of Charter Communications, Live Nation Entertainment and Zillow.
Maffei, 64, was at the helm during major growth to Liberty Media’s entertainment and sports assets, which include acquiring the Atlanta Braves (2007) and Formula One (2016). Formula One was later spun off into a tracking stock while the Braves have since been split off into its own publicly traded company.
The news comes as Liberty plans to spin off most of its assets besides Formula One into a separate publicly traded company called Liberty Live.
Liberty Live will hold 69.6 million shares of Live Nation Entertainment, Quint and other private assets, the company says. Liberty will maintain its holdings of Formula One and recently acquired MotoGP (once the transaction is complete).
Liberty’s Investor Day is set to take place Thursday in New York City.
