The global telecoms company, which owns Virgin Media in the UK, has been knocked back after making overtures towards Ziggo, a Dutch cable operator.

Ziggo said in a statement that it had received a “preliminary” offer from Liberty, which it considered “inadequate”.

Jilted Liberty responded with a statement of its own, insisting that: “there is no certainty Ziggo will receive any revised offer”.

Ziggo has 2.8 million customers in and around the city of Utrecht and Liberty Global is already one of its largest shareholders.

It is belived that Liberty would like to gain complete control of Ziggo in order to merge it with UPC Netherlands – the country’s second-largest cableco – and Belgian operator Telnet, both of which it already owns.

As well as owning Virgin Media in the UK, Liberty owns Unity Media in Germany.