John Malone officially resigned as chairman of DirecTV today as previously announced after receiving FCC regulatory approval, and reduced his family’s voting interest in the company from 24.3% to 3%.
Malone remains chairman and majority shareholder of DirecTV owner Liberty Media.
DirecTV president and CEO Michael D. White has been elected as Chairman of DirecTV’s board of directors.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Malones exchanged 21,809,863 shares of Class B common stock of the Company, which is all of the outstanding Class B shares (they will be cancelled), for 26,547,624 shares of Class A common stock.
As part of the transaction, board members Paul A. Gould and Gregory B. Maffei also resigned.
Samuel A. DiPiazza, Jr., 59, global CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited (PwC) until last year, has been elected to the board effective Thursday.
The FCC approval order also confirms that DirecTV has now satisfied a condition relating to its subsidiary in Puerto Rico, imposed by the FCC in February 2008 in connection with the acquisition by Liberty Media Corporation of its interest in DirecTV. As a result, DirecTV Latin America will be permitted to remove its Puerto Rican operations from a trust which had been established in 2009.
— By Scott Hettrick