Webcast very interesting. A very good presentation from Liberty's boss Mike Fries, a cool, calm person and his 50th birthday today. He called the vm deal "a nice present".
I think and despite what was said in the webcast, its far too early to see what the impact will be on vm and for us as customers.
As Fries said, Liberty do not have a major pressence in the UK, so its not like the ntl/telewest merger, or previous cableco mergers. As far as the UK goes, there's nothing to merge. The wider picture, though, is unclear.
Fries pointed that the European market is fragmented and underperforming and I believe he intends to use VM as best practice across all of Liberty's operations in Europe. As an example, Liberty has a lot of analogue subscribers and they're keen to learn from virgin how vm did things here.
US billionaire John Malone, major shareholder in Liberty, arch rival to Murdoch, had little to say.
To all, intents and purposes, Fries is now VM boss and in charge of UK cableco but whatever name it will be called. He said the VM name will remain but of course he also said that Liberty will redomocile to the UK and become a subsidary of a new, as yet unnamed company.
I think, long term, Liberty's operations will come under one brand, whether that be Virgin (I think not), UPC, Cablecom, Unity Media etc time will tell.
Liberty keen to buy more european assets.
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Originally Posted by denphone
So in other words not much will change in the short term and its just carry on as normal with a steady hand on the tiller.
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That's my impression, yes. Liberty are very happy with vm and how its set up.
As I tried saying to a poster last night, Liberty have been involved in uk cable for a long, long time. They know what's what and it won't be UPC guys telling vm what to do, but probably the other way around by all accounts.