Business

DILLER, IAC BOARD SET TO MEET OVER BREAK-UP

Fresh off his legal victory over Liberty Media, IAC/InterActiveCorp boss Barry Diller is expected to meet with his board this week to restart the process of breaking up his company into five separate pieces, The Post has learned.

At the same time, sources said Diller and Liberty Media Chairman John Malone are continuing to talk about a deal that would trade one or more of IAC’s assets for Liberty’s ownership stake in IAC.

According to two sources close to the situation, IAC’s board is scheduled to meet this week for the first time since Delaware Chancery Court Judge Stephen Lamb ruled in favor of Diller in his contentious battle with friend-turned-foe Malone over control of IAC.

At the meeting, the board is expected to discuss ways to move forward with the structure of the spin-off, which would create four separate entities as follows: HSN home-shopping network, Ticketmaster, Interval International, and LendingTree. IAC would be left with such assets as Ask.com and Match.com.

IAC wants to spin off the units with a single, instead of a dual, class of stock, which would dilute by half Liberty’s 62 percent voting stake in the spun-off entities.

Sources said that Diller and Malone are trying to put the ugliness of the trial behind them, and have talked several times since it ended in early March. The two are hopeful that this time around they can agree to terms on an asset-swap deal.

Liberty is keen to acquire IAC’s Home Shopping Network and combine it with QVC. The two sides have discussed such a deal numerous times in the past but have been unable to agree on a price.

Though the trial reaffirmed Diller’s control of IAC via an “irrevocable proxy” granted to him by Malone, the mercurial mogul and his board must tread carefully as they pursue the spin-off plan.

Lamb never issued a ruling on whether the IAC board violated its fiduciary duty with the single-tier stock structure, if only because IAC hadn’t made a definitive decision to go that route. He did, however, reserve the right to issue a ruling once IAC’s directors decide on a concrete path to pursue and how it will be structured.

And Liberty still retains the right to sue IAC on fiduciary duty grounds. peter.lauria@nypost.com