Annual report pursuant to Section 13 and 15(d)

Stockholders' Equity

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Stockholders' Equity
12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2019
Stockholders' Equity  
Stockholders' Equity

(11) Stockholders' Equity

Preferred Stock

Qurate Retail's preferred stock is issuable, from time to time, with such designations, preferences and relative participating, optional or other rights, qualifications, limitations or restrictions thereof, as shall be stated and expressed in a resolution or resolutions providing for the issue of such preferred stock adopted by Qurate Retail's Board of Directors.  As of December 31, 2019, no shares of preferred stock were issued.

Common Stock

Series A Qurate Retail common stock has one vote per share, and Series B Qurate Retail common stock has ten votes per share.  Each share of the Series B common stock is exchangeable at the option of the holder for one share of Series A common stock of the same group.  The Series A and Series B common stock participate on an equal basis with respect to dividends and distributions.

At the Annual Meeting of Stockholders held on June 2, 2015, the Company’s stockholders approved an amendment to the Restated Certificate of Incorporation that increased (i) the total number of shares of the Company’s capital stock which the Company will have the authority to issue to 9,015 million shares, (ii) the number of shares of the Company’s capital stock designated as “Common Stock” to 8,965 million shares and (iii) the number of shares of Common Stock designated as “Series A Liberty Ventures Common Stock,” “Series B Liberty Ventures Common Stock” and “Series C Liberty Ventures Common Stock” to 400 million shares, 15 million shares and 400 million shares, respectively.

At the Annual Meeting of Stockholders held on May 23, 2018, the Company’s stockholders approved an amendment to the Restated Certificate of Incorporation, which (i) eliminated the tracking stock capitalization structure of the Company and (ii) reclassified each outstanding share of Series A and Series B QVC Group common stock into one share of our Series A and Series B common stock, respectively.  In addition, the amendment to the Restated Certificate of Incorporation changed (i) the total number of shares of the Company’s capital stock which the Company will have the authority to issue to 8,200 million shares, (ii) the number of shares of the Company’s capital stock designated as “Common Stock” to 8,150 million shares, (ii) the number of shares of Common Stock designated as “Series A Common Stock,” “Series B Common Stock” and “Series C Common Stock” to 4,000 million shares, 150 million shares and 4,000 million shares, respectively, and (iii) the number of shares of the Company’s capital stock designated as “Preferred Stock” to 50 million shares.

As of December 31, 2019, Qurate Retail reserved for issuance upon exercise of outstanding stock options approximately 23.2 million shares of Series A Qurate Retail common stock and approximately 1.8 million shares of Series B Qurate Retail common stock.

In addition to the Series A and Series B Qurate Retail common stock, there are 4 billion shares of Series C Qurate Retail common stock authorized for issuance, respectively. As of December 31, 2019, no shares of any Series C Qurate Retail common stock were issued or outstanding.

On December 29, 2017, in conjunction with the acquisition of HSN, Qurate Retail issued 53.6 million shares of Series A Qurate Retail common stock. See additional discussion about the acquisition in note 4.

As discussed in note 1, on March 9, 2018, Qurate Retail completed the GCI Liberty Split-Off. As part of the GCI Liberty Split-Off, all outstanding shares of Series A Liberty Ventures common stock were redeemed for one share of GCI Liberty Class A common stock and each outstanding share of Series B Liberty Ventures common stock was redeemed for one share of GCI Liberty Class B common stock.

Purchases of Common Stock

During the year ended December 31, 2017, the Company repurchased 34,765,751 shares of Series A Qurate Retail common stock for aggregate cash consideration of $766 million.

During the year ended December 31, 2018, the Company repurchased 43,080,787 shares of Series A Qurate Retail common stock for aggregate cash consideration of $988 million.

During the year ended December 31, 2019, the Company repurchased 24,329,610 shares of Series A Qurate Retail common stock for aggregate cash consideration of $392 million.

All of the foregoing shares were repurchased pursuant to a previously announced share repurchase program and have been retired and returned to the status of authorized and available for issuance.