Time Warner reached a deal to sell the Atlanta Braves to Liberty Media after more than a year of negotiations, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
The agreement, which must still be approved by Major League Baseball owners, would involve Time Warner transferring the Braves, a group of craft magazines and $1 billion in cash to Liberty in exchange for about 60 million shares of Time Warner, the Journal reported, citing an unidentified person familiar with the deal.
Based on the closing price of Time Warner's stock on Monday, the market value of those shares would be about $1.27 billion.
Liberty Media spokesman John Orr and Time Warner spokesman Ed Adler declined to comment on the report.
Liberty currently has about 171 million shares of Time Warner, which is equivalent to a stake of about 4% of the media company, whose holdings include Time Warner Cable, HBO, AOL, CNN, Warner Bros. and Time Inc. The deal would reduce the size of Liberty's stake in Time Warner to about 2.6%.
Time Warner acquired the Braves when it bought Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting Systems from Ted Turner in the mid-1990s.