Liberty Interactive Announces Split, TripAdvisor Spinoff

John Malone's Liberty Interactive Corp said it would spin off online retailer BuySeasons and its stake in travel website TripAdvisor Inc, as part of a plan to split itself into three.

Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings would hold the two website investments while two new tracking stocks would hold the rest of the company, Liberty Interactive said in a statement.

Liberty Digital Commerce will include the company's other e-commerce companies such as Provide Commerce, Backcountry.com, Bodybuilding.com, CommerceHub, Right Start and Evite.

The other stock, QVC Group, will track the value of cable shopping channel QVC Inc and Liberty's 38 percent interest in another shopping channel, HSN Inc.

Liberty Interactive holds a 22 percent economic interest and 57 percent of the voting stock of TripAdvisor, a tourism review site spun off from online travel agency Expedia Inc.

Liberty Interactive's shares were up 2.5 percent in premarket trading. They closed at $22.86 on the Nasdaq on Wednesday.

Liberty Media Corp Chairman John Malone has bought and sold cable and media companies for decades and is known as the "King of Cable".

His Liberty Interactive took control of TripAdvisor from veteran media mogul Barry Diller in December.

Separately, Liberty Media said on Thursday Sirius XM Radio Inc will buy back $500 million of its common stock from Liberty Media as part of Sirius' share repurchase plan.

Liberty Media will continue to own more than 52 percent of Sirius' outstanding shares after the repurchase.