(2)  Tracking Stocks

Tracking stocks are a type of common stock that the issuing company intends to reflect or "track" the economic performance of a particular business or "group," rather than the economic performance of the company as a whole. Liberty has two tracking stocks—QVC Group common stock and Liberty Ventures common stock, which are intended to track and reflect the economic performance of Liberty’s QVC Group and Ventures Group, respectively. While the QVC Group and the Ventures Group have separate collections of businesses, assets and liabilities attributed to them, no group is a separate legal entity and therefore cannot own assets, issue securities or enter into legally binding agreements. Holders of tracking stock have no direct claim to the group's stock or assets and are not represented by separate boards of directors. Instead, holders of tracking stock are stockholders of the parent corporation, with a single board of directors and subject to all of the risks and liabilities of the parent corporation.

The term "Ventures Group" does not represent a separate legal entity, rather it represents those businesses, assets and liabilities that have been attributed to that group.  The Ventures Group consists of our businesses not included in the QVC Group including Evite, Inc. (“Evite”) and our interests in Liberty Broadband Corporation (“Liberty Broadband”), LendingTree, Inc. (“LendingTree”), FTD Companies, Inc. (“FTD”),  investments in Charter Communications, Inc. (“Charter Communications, Inc.”) and ILG, Inc. (“ILG”), as well as cash in the amount of approximately $573 million (at December 31, 2017), including subsidiary cash. The Ventures Group also has attributed to it certain liabilities related to our Exchangeable Debentures and certain deferred tax liabilities. The Ventures Group is primarily focused on the maximization of the value of these investments and investing in new business opportunities. 

On April 4, 2017, Liberty entered into an Agreement and Plan of Reorganization (as amended, the “GCI Reorganization Agreement” and the transactions contemplated thereby, the “Transactions”) with General Communication, Inc. (“GCI”), an Alaska corporation, and Liberty Interactive LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of Liberty (“LI LLC”), whereby Liberty will acquire GCI through a reorganization in which certain Ventures Group assets and liabilities will be contributed to GCI Liberty (as defined below) in exchange for a controlling interest in GCI Liberty.  Liberty and LI LLC will contribute to GCI Liberty its entire equity interest in Liberty Broadband and Charter, along with, subject to certain exceptions, Liberty’s entire equity interests in LendingTree, together with the Evite operating business and certain other assets and liabilities, in exchange for (i) the issuance to LI LLC of a number of shares of new GCI Liberty Class A Common Stock and a number of shares of new GCI Liberty Class B Common Stock equal to the number of outstanding shares of Series A Liberty Ventures common stock and Series B Liberty Ventures common stock outstanding on the closing date of the Contribution, respectively, (ii) cash and (iii) the assumption of certain liabilities by GCI Liberty (the “Contribution”).

Liberty will then effect a tax-free separation of its controlling interest in the combined company (which has since been renamed GCI Liberty, Inc. (“GCI Liberty”)) to the holders of Liberty Ventures common stock, distributing one share of the corresponding class of new GCI Liberty common stock for each share of Liberty Ventures common stock held, in full redemption of all outstanding shares of such stock, leaving QVC Group common stock as the only outstanding common stock of Liberty.  On the business day prior to the Contribution, holders of reclassified GCI Class A Common Stock and reclassified GCI Class B Common Stock each will receive (i) 0.63 of a share of new GCI Liberty Class A Common Stock and (ii) 0.20 of a share of new GCI Liberty Series A Cumulative Redeemable Preferred Stock (the “GCI Liberty preferred stock”) in exchange for each share of their reclassified GCI stock.  The exchange ratios were determined based on total consideration of $32.50 per share for existing GCI common stock, comprised of $27.50 per share in new GCI Liberty Class A Common Stock and $5.00 per share in newly issued GCI Liberty preferred stock, and a Liberty Ventures reference price of $43.65 (with no additional premium paid for shares of reclassified GCI Class B Common Stock). The GCI Liberty Series A preferred stock will accrue dividends at an initial rate of 5% per annum (which would increase to 7% in connection with a future reincorporation of GCI Liberty in Delaware) and will be redeemable upon the 21st anniversary of the closing of the Transactions.

At the closing of the Transactions, Liberty will reattribute certain assets and liabilities from the Ventures Group to the QVC Group (the “Reattribution”).  The reattributed assets and liabilities are expected to include cash, Liberty’s interest in ILG, FTD, certain green energy investments, LI LLC’s exchangeable debentures, and certain tax benefits. Pursuant to a recent amendment to the GCI Reorganization Agreement, LI LLC’s 1.75% Exchangeable Debentures due 2046 (the “1.75% Exchangeable Debentures”) will not be subject to a pre-closing exchange offer and will instead be reattributed to the QVC Group, along with (i) an amount of cash equal to the net present value of the adjusted principal amount of such 1.75% Exchangeable Debentures (determined as if paid on October 5, 2023) and stated interest payments on the 1.75% Exchangeable Debentures to October 5, 2023 and (ii) an indemnity obligation from GCI Liberty with respect to any payments made by LI LLC in excess of stated principal and interest to any holder that exercises its exchange right under the terms of the debentures through October 5, 2023. The cash reattributed to the QVC Group will be funded by available cash attributed to Liberty’s Ventures Group and the proceeds of a margin loan facility attributed to the Ventures Group in an initial principal amount of $1 billion.  Within six months of the closing, Liberty, LI LLC and GCI Liberty will cooperate with, and reasonably assist each other with respect to, the commencement and consummation of a purchase offer (the “Purchase Offer”) whereby LI LLC will offer to purchase, either pursuant to privately negotiated transactions or a tender offer, the 1.75% Exchangeable Debentures on terms and conditions (including maximum offer price) reasonably acceptable to GCI Liberty. GCI Liberty will indemnify LI LLC for each 1.75% Exchangeable Debenture repurchased by LI LLC in the Purchase Offer in an amount equal to the difference between (x) the purchase price paid by LI LLC to acquire such 1.75% Exchangeable Debenture in the Purchase Offer and (y) the sum of the amount of cash reattributed with respect to such purchased 1.75% Exchangeable Debenture in the Reattribution plus the amount of certain tax benefits attributable to such 1.75% Exchangeable Debenture so purchased. GCI Liberty’s indemnity obligation with respect to payments made upon a holder’s exercise of its exchange right will be eliminated as to any 1.75% Exchangeable Debentures purchased in the Purchase Offer.

On December 29, 2017, Broadband Holdco, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, entered into a margin loan agreement with an availability of $1 billion with various lender parties. Approximately 42.7 million shares of Liberty Broadband series C common stock held by the Company with a value of $3.6 billion were pledged by Broadband Holdco, LLC as collateral to the loan as of December 31, 2017. This margin loan has a term of two years and bears interest at a rate of LIBOR plus 1.85% and contains an undrawn commitment fee of 0.75% per annum. As of December 31, 2017 there were no outstanding borrowings on the margin loan.

Liberty will complete the Reattribution using similar valuation methodologies to those used in connection with its previous reattributions, including taking into account the advice of its financial advisor. The Transactions are expected to be consummated on March 9, 2018, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Simultaneous with that closing, QVC Group common stock will become the only outstanding common stock of Liberty, and thus QVC Group common stock will cease to function as a tracking stock and will effectively become regular common stock, and Liberty will be renamed Qurate Retail Group, Inc., with QVC, HSNi and zulily as wholly-owned subsidiaries.

The term "QVC Group" does not represent a separate legal entity, rather it represents those businesses, assets and liabilities that have been attributed to that group. The QVC Group is primarily comprised of our merchandise-focused televised-shopping programs, Internet and mobile application businesses. The QVC Group has attributed to it the remainder of our businesses and assets not attributed to the Ventures Group, including our wholly-owned subsidiaries QVC and zulily (as of October 1, 2015) and HSN, Inc. (“HSNi”) (as of December 29, 2017) as well as cash in the amount of approximately $330 million (at December 31, 2017), including subsidiary cash.

On May 18, 2016, Liberty completed a $2.4 billion investment in Liberty Broadband (for accounting purposes a related party of the Company) in connection with the merger of Charter and Time Warner Cable Inc. ("TWC"). The proceeds of this investment were used by Liberty Broadband to fund, in part, its acquisition of $5 billion of stock in the new public parent company (“Charter”) of the combined enterprises. Liberty, along with third party investors, all of whom invested on the same terms as Liberty, purchased newly issued shares of Liberty Broadband Series C common stock at a per share price of $56.23, which was determined based upon the fair value of Liberty Broadband's net assets on a sum-of-the-parts basis at the time the investment agreements were executed (May 2015). Liberty's investment in Liberty Broadband was funded using cash on hand and is attributed to the Ventures Group. See note 9 for additional information related to this investment.

Liberty, as part of the merger of Charter and TWC described above, exchanged, in a tax-free transaction, its shares of TWC common stock for shares of Charter Class A common stock, on a one-for-one basis, and Liberty has granted to Liberty Broadband a proxy and a right of first refusal with respect to the shares of Charter Class A common stock held by Liberty in the exchange. 

See Exhibit 99.1 to this Annual Report on Form 10-K for unaudited attributed financial information for Liberty's tracking stock groups.