A billionaire with a casual cowboy style, Mr. Malone built his fortune in the early days of the cable business, building Tele-Communications Inc. into the nation's largest cable-TV operator.
He's known for his obsessive pursuit of complex business deals.
Through his Liberty Media, headquartered outside the media spotlight in Englewood, Colo.
, he has acquired, traded and spun assets in myriad media and technology companies over the years, including recently Sirius XM Radio, buying them when their under duress and spinning them off as business improves.
Despite the challenges facing the business and varied interests from modern art to thoroughbred horses, Mr. Riggio, also 70, has indicated no interest in disengaging from the business he started with a single store in New York City's Greenwich Village in the mid-1960s.
Last summer when Barnes & Noble's board put the bookstore chain up for sale as activist investor Ronald Burkle waged a proxy battle for seats on the board, Mr. Riggio, who owns nearly 30% of its stock, said he was considering putting together an investment fund to take the company private. Mr. Burkle's efforts to put directors on the bookseller's board failed to win shareholder approval.
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