Sirius XM Holdings Inc. shares climbed above the buyout offer from its majority owner Liberty Media Corp., signaling that investors expect the bidder to sweeten its offer.

Liberty, which already owns about half of the satellite-radio company, made an offer last week valuing the rest at $3.68 a share, or about $10.6 billion. The stock closed at $3.83 today in New York, more than 4 percent higher than the bid by Liberty, an investment company controlled by billionaire John Malone.

The reaction signals that Liberty may face opposition in getting investors to approve the current deal. Greg Maffei, the companys chief executive officer, said last week that Liberty plans to tap the cash of Sirius to potentially finance other transactions, including a possible bid for Time Warner Cable Inc. Liberty is contemplating making a Time Warner Cable deal through another of its holdings, Charter Communications Inc.

Liberty is essentially offering a very low premium, Jim Boyle, managing director at SQAD LLC, an advertising tracking and forecasting firm, said in an e-mail. Theres speculation that the Sirius special committee of independent board members will counter higher.

Siriuss board is forming a committee of directors to consider Libertys proposal. Any deal would be subject to approval by those board members, as well as a majority of the New York-based companys shareholders.

Liberty has proposed creating a new class of stock, called Series C, and offering 0.076 of a share for each Sirius share. The deal would give Sirius a market value of about $23 billion.

Sirius XM will generate more cash for Liberty, Maffei said last week. Its still below its target leverage rate, which we might increase. That could be put toward financing a Time Warner Cable deal.

Charter, meanwhile, is preparing a takeover offer of about $135 a share for Time Warner Cable, people familiar with the situation have said.

The Sirius deal would provide incremental capital for Liberty that would help it avoid being diluted in any deal between Charter and Time Warner Cable, Maffei said. Sirius has generated about $895 million in free cash flow over the past 12 months, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Sirius shares have more than doubled over the past two years, fueled by a recovering auto market. A surge of car sales has increased the number of satellite-radio installations, helping lift Siriuss subscriber count to 25.6 million at the end of September.

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Sirius’s Shares Climb Above Buyout Offer From Malone’s Liberty