Madison Square Garden, controlled by the Dolan family, may sell its Live Nation Entertainment stake after its chairman resigned from the concert promoter’s board, a Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst said.
MSG’s 3.9 million Live Nation shares, representing about 2 percent of the company’s stock, are worth about $40 million before taxes, Ben Mogil, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, wrote yesterday in a report.
James Dolan’s resignation, which was announced in a filing by Live Nation yesterday, follows Irving Azoff’s decision to step down as chairman of the company in December.
Madison Square Garden acquired its stake as part of a transaction Live Nation completed in February 2011, when it bought the remaining 25 percent of Azoff’s Front Line Management Group that it didn’t already own.