Starz Up Strongly in Market Debut

Stock rises more than 10% in early trading

By Mike Farrell, Multichannel News -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/14/2013 5:35:02 PM

Premium channel Starz began trading as a separate publicly traded entity Monday, opening on the NASDAQ Global Market System at $14.15 per share and rising more than 10% in its market debut.

Starz' debut marks the end of a nearly five-month journey to separate the premium channel's assets from parent Liberty Media Corp., and transform the programmer's shares into an asset-backed security.

Starz shares opened at $14.15 each, rising as high as $15.75 each (up 11.3% or $1.60 each) in early trading Monday. The stock closed at $15.59 each on Jan. 14, up 9.8% or $1.39 per share.

Liberty said it completed the distribution of Starz shares on Friday Jan. 11 after the market close - Liberty Media shareholders received one share of Starz common stock for every Liberty share they held.

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