By alley - Dec 14, 2016, 10:58 AM ET

F1: Liberty agrees $1.55b investment

Liberty Media has announced it has entered into agreements with third party investors to commit $1.55 billion toward its acquisition of Formula 1.

A group of investors – named by Liberty as Coatue Management, the D. E. Shaw group, JANA Partners, Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb Inc., Soroban Capital Partners, SPO Advisory Corp., and Viking Global Investors – will receive newly-issued shares at a price of $25 per share to support the purchase of F1, which was agreed in September and valued the sport at $8b.

The deal has been agreed to allow Liberty to increase the amount of cash it will pay to the selling shareholders – led by F1's current majority shareholder CVC Capital Partners – with Liberty stating "as a result of this investment, the number of [Liberty common] shares issuable to the Selling Shareholders at the closing of the Formula 1 acquisition will be reduced from approximately 138 million to approximately 76 million."

The overall total shares which will be issued by Liberty as a result of the takeover remains unchanged, with approximately 62 million shares going to the third party investors. Chase Carey, the new chairman of Formula 1, says the list of third party investors shows the confidence in F1's future.

"This is a significant step in Liberty Media's transformative acquisition of Formula 1 and is further confirmation that the future of the sport is bright," Carey said.

Greg Maffei, President and CEO of Liberty Media, echoed Carey's thoughts, saying the new investors see the same potential in the sport.

"We are excited that this impressive list of investors will participate in the acquisition of Formula 1," Maffei said. "This group shares our enthusiasm for the sport and our belief in the opportunity to develop and grow it for the benefit of the fans, teams, sponsors and our shareholders. We look forward to closing the transaction in early 2017."

It was recently announced that a meeting has been called for the morning of Jan. 17 at Liberty's corporate offices in Colorado, where stockholders will vote on the next phase of the takeover, including whether to approve the new shares and the renaming to become the Formula One Group.