Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei keynoted the Denver Dealmaker’s Forum Wednesday with an account of his efforts to transform the company from a sprawling collection of  assets assembled by cable pioneer John Malone to a real operating company.

The forum was organized by Corporate Dealmaker and the Denver ACG.

Maffei covered a lot of territory at the event. No surprise there; so does Liberty, though the firm is a lot simpler since Maffei, a former Microsoft CFO, became Liberty CEO in early 2006.

Among other things, Maffei talked about the negotiating leverage he and Malone enjoyed when exchanging Liberty’s stake in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. for a controlling stake in DirecTV late last year, thanks to Murdoch’s desire to retain family control of News Corp.

In the Q&A, he was asked about prospects for combining DirecTV with rival EchoStar’s Dish Network, a possibility raised by EchoStar’s move this week to separate itself into two companies. That, of course, was EchoStar CEO Charlie Ergen’s idea in 2003 and 2004. Ergen was blocked by regulators. Maffei said he thinks such a deal could still create great value. But he was skeptical that the antitrust climate had changed enough to make it possible. “I’m not an antitrust lawyer,” he said. “But I’m gloomy on that front.” —Kenneth Klee

See TheDeal.com story about Malone, Murdoch swapping stakes
See TheDeal.com story about EchoStar's spinoff

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