Liberty Media Corp. bought 78.3 million additional shares in DirecTV Group Inc. to increase its stake in the satellite-television provider to 48 percent, the media company said Thursday.
Liberty borrowed $1.98 billion to fund the purchase, the company said in a statement.
In February, Englewood, Colo.-based Liberty, a media holding company controlled by John Malone, completed a $12 billion asset swap with fellow media mogul Rupert Murdoch that exchanged Liberty’s stake in News Corp. for a 41 percent interest in the nation’s largest satellite TV provider.
Shares in DirecTV edged up 1.3 percent to $26.30 in early trading Thursday.
