By Bob Meyer

Pending regulatory approval, a tax-free, all-stock merger of equals (with a combined enterprise value of $11.4 billion) will take place later this year between Sirius and XM, thus creating a single satellite-based giant of radio programming.

It’s expected that Mel Karmazin, CEO of Sirius will be the new CEO, while Gary Parsons, the Chairman of XM, will remain in that role.

The interesting aspect of this pending multi-billion dollar transaction is the part that barter played.

Prior to the barter deal, XM was clearly the leader in the number of subscribers as well as forming some substantial revenue sharing agreements with automotive manufacturers to drive additional traffic. Many expected XM to blow Sirius out of the water.

But then Sirius put together the Howard Stern deal (which included a big barter component) and Stern delivered.

Now, a couple of years later we see the results of their brilliant marketing move, as Sirius buys its rival XM for $4.6 billion in stock.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 19th, 2007 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Best & Brightest Barter, Media & Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.