Virgin Media takeover agreed

Liberty Global named as bidder

Virgin Media has confirmed it is in takeover talks that could lead to a bid from US cable company Liberty Global in the coming days.

Any deal would put Liberty Global's chairman, John Malone, head-to-head with his occasional nemesis Rupert Murdoch in the fierce battle for the UK's pay-TV customers.

The company said on Tuesday: "Virgin Media confirms that it is in discussions with Liberty Global, a leading international cable company, concerning a possible transaction. Any such transaction would be subject to regulatory and other conditions."



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MEDIA on GUARDIAN.CO.UK
05-Feb-2013 @ 12:08

Something has to happen for Virgin Media soonish. The rollout of FTTC by BT is really showing VM's network up to be the mismanaged hotch-potch it really is. Headline speeds might not (yet) be quite there, but every BT connection I've tried has been a whole lot more robust than the VM connections I've endured for years.

Their telly offering seems stagnant as well, with no sign of them making good on bringing everything up to the TiVo interface.

And now BT have announced they are ditching traffic management for new contracts, they are beginning to look even more competitive.

Does BT offer better upload speeds, need HD video calling

I wonder, would they be using the Virgin name under license, or would a takeover mean rebrand time?

Press release confirming that Liberty Global has entered into an agreement with VM to acquire it.

"Virgin Media will continue to operate under the Virgin Media brand in the UK."

It's worth remembering that Virgin's stake in the company was always low, currently only about 3%, they've always used the name under license

If they were to rebrand, they would rename it UPC UK like what they have done with NTL Ireland.

Can't blame them keeping the Virgin name though, much better then Telewest or NTL.

Good luck to the VM customers.

I had UPC when I was in The Netheralnds. Talk about complete ineptness and lets just say the service was nowhere near as good as Virgin (and from what I have heard they are bad enough!)

VM or who ever has taken it over cant compete with sky since, not every one has cable, Not around my area,

I am expecting a request from LG-VM to use BT's Infinity Network to offer services out of cabled areas as a direct competitor to YouView. Expect an Ofcom rumble or two in the works soon.