Interesting article in today’s Wall Street Journal about Liberty Media Corp’s proposed acquisition of the Atlanta Braves major league baseball team owned by Time Warner, Inc.  (On Braves Sale, Baseball Throws A Change-Up, by Stefan Fatsis.) Although details of the deal are sketchy in the article, it appears to be a cash-rich split-off whereby Time Warner will transfer the team and $1.3 billion in cash to Liberty in exchange for Time Warner shares that Liberty already owns:

Time Warner has negotiated exclusively with Liberty for several weeks on a tax-free swap of assets that would include the Braves….

Under terms of a deal discussed in recent weeks, Time Warner would send Liberty the Braves and $1.3 billion in cash. In exchange, Time Warner would receive 108 million of the 171 million shares of its stock held by Liberty, or about 63%, which were valued at the time at about $1.8 billion. Company officials caution that the terms of the deal could change. Liberty owns just under 4% of Time Warner shares, a stake that will shrink to about 1.4%. Time Warner has announced plans to buy back about $20 billion of its shares.