\n<\/p>\n
Billionaire media mogul John Malone, the so-called \u201cCable Cowboy\u201d, is stepping down as chair of his powerful empire.<\/p>\n
Malone will stand aside in January from his roles overseeing Liberty Media, owner of Formula One, and Liberty Global, the firm behind telecommunications operator Virgin Media O2, it was announced today.<\/p>\n
Through decades of deal-making, Malone became a groundbreaking figure in the modern telecom and TV industries, as he bought and sold a string of cable and media companies and stakes and amassed a sprawling portfolio.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m stepping back a notch,\u201d Malone told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, stressing that he would now focus on strategy, deal-making and being \u201ca cheerleader for management\u201d.<\/p>\n
Malone does not plan to \u201cget as involved in the operational details of these businesses\u201d, he added. The move was first reported by the Financial Times.<\/p>\n
He will become emeritus chair of Liberty Media and Liberty Global, the Journal reported, and remain a controlling shareholder.<\/p>\n
In Malone\u2019s place, Mike Fries, Liberty Global\u2019s longtime CEO, will become chair. Robert \u201cDob\u201d Bennett, a veteran executive within Malone\u2019s orbit, will become chair of Liberty Media.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not retiring from business,\u201d Malone said in a statement. \u201cBut I am looking to reduce travel and time commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along with Fox\u2019s Rupert Murdoch and Viacom founder Sumner Redstone, Malone reshaped the media landscape. His decision to step back from his business leaves the 94-year-old Murdoch as the last of his generation of media moguls to be actively involved in his media business. Redstone died, aged 97, in 2020.<\/p>\n
Malone, 84, has a personal net worth of about $10.6bn, according to Bloomberg. Beyond his corporate roles, he is also one of the largest landowners in the US. He and his wife, Leslie, acquired about 2.2m acres (890,000 hectares) of land in the US.<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n When asked about the prospect of retirement last month, he joked that he had been telling his wife he would retire since the age of 30.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is slow because I\u2019ve been involved in so many things,\u201d Malone told Bloomberg News. \u201cTo me in, uh, retirement is primarily extricating myself from the public corporate roles that I play. I have a ton of private businesses, everything from ranching, farming, forestry, multifamily, horse racing. You know, I got a lot of things that I\u2019m still saying grace over.\u201d<\/p>\n Malone planned to maintain his control over \u201cthe various enterprises from which I will be slowly leaving the boards\u201d, he stressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Billionaire media mogul John Malone, the so-called \u201cCable Cowboy\u201d, is stepping down as chair of his powerful empire. Malone will stand aside in January from his roles overseeing Liberty Media, owner of Formula One, and Liberty Global, the firm behind telecommunications operator Virgin Media O2, it was announced today. Through decades of deal-making, Malone became<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1076,826,6893,262,11691,205,1207],"class_list":{"0":"post-31460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-cable","9":"tag-cowboy","10":"tag-empire","11":"tag-john","12":"tag-malone","13":"tag-media","14":"tag-step"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}