Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Liberty Media Corp. Chairman John Malone said his company isn’t in talks to acquire a stake in General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal.

Vivendi SA, NBC’s minority owner, is considering selling its 20 percent stake, people with knowledge of the matter have said. Malone would consider buying NBC if he could pay “seven times cash flow,” he said in an interview in New York, where Liberty gave a presentation to analysts and investors.

Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable operator, is negotiating with GE to create a new company, people with knowledge of the discussions have said. Comcast would contribute cash and cable networks including E! Entertainment and Versus, gaining NBC content. Any transaction would depend on Paris-based Vivendi selling its NBC holding.

The talks value NBC at $25 billion to $30 billion, one person said. Philadelphia-based Comcast, led by Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts, would pay about eight times NBC’s cash flow, estimates Craig Moffett, a New York-based analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

“It’s a good deal for Brian Roberts without having to sell the farm,” Malone said.

Malone, whose Englewood, Colorado-based Liberty has assets including the Starz cable network and a stake in DirecTV Group Inc., the largest U.S. satellite broadcaster, said he’ll be watching how government regulators respond to the NBC-Comcast transaction being discussed. He said he’s interested to see whether the government will allow a pay-television service to acquire content like NBC “without limitations” on Comcast’s ability to leverage its distribution power.

‘Economic Value’

“It will be interesting to see if they get this through,” Malone said. Using distribution muscle to sell Comcast’s own programming is “a pretty straightforward way to create economic value,” he said.

Liberty Entertainment, which includes Liberty Media’s interests in DirecTV, Starz Entertainment and sports assets, rose 65 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $31.20 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have climbed 78 percent this year.

To contact the reporter on this story: James Callan in New York at jcallan2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 16, 2009 16:07 EDT