It will also pay 47.25 Canadian dollars for each nonvoting share, a 57 percent bonus.

Yesterday Viacom's class B nonvoting shares fell to $28, down $1.875.

But this would not require new nonvoting shares to be issued.

Olivetti wants to take control of Telecom by purchasing only its common stock with voting rights, ignoring nonvoting shares.

They can increase their stake by owning nonvoting shares, but the two forms of ownership combined cannot exceed 24.9 percent.

Using those figures, the nonvoting shares alone could be worth $2.5 billion and the company about $3 billion.

Such nonvoting shares are currently forbidden in Australia, where the News Corporation is based.

There is at least some explanation for the transaction, in which Liberty swapped part of its nonvoting shares for voting ones.

The nonvoting shares have historically traded at a discount to the voting ones.

Should it be included, the nonvoting shares would be listed and could attract a large and steady investor base.