Liberty Media plunges into loss

Liberty Media, a US investment company that has stakes in some of the world's biggest cable and media firms, has posted a $6.2bn (£4.3bn) loss for 2001, hammered by a sharp drop in the value of some key stakes.

In 2000, the company earned a profit of almost $1.5bn.

Revenues at Liberty, which owns QVC and the Discovery television network, rose to $2.1bn in 2001 from $1.5bn in 2000.

The company's investment portfolio declined in valuye by $4.1bn, including a loss of just over $2bn for its stake in AOL Time Warner.

AOL, the world's biggest media company, recently unveiled a $54bn write-down, one of the biggest corporate losses in history.