A long mooted deal between Vodafone and US group Liberty Global - owner of Virgin Media - could finally be on the cards.
But instead of a speculated merger, it seems any deal would involve swapping assets. Last week Liberty boss John Malone said the two companies were a good fit, which set the takeover hare racing again, and a new report from Bloomberg overnight about some sort of combination has prompted a confirmation from Vodafone. The mobile phone group said:
Vodafone confirms it is in the early stages of discussions with Liberty Global regarding a possible exchange of selected assets between the two companies.
It said there was no certainty of any transaction, and added:
Vodafone is not in discussions with Liberty Global concerning a combination of the two companies.
The news sent Vodafone shares - up recently on the bid speculation - down 5.35p to 242.75p.
Vodafone has 446m mobile customers across the globe, and it has already moved into fixed line networks and cable operators in Spain and Germany. Liberty has operations in 12 European countries, and analysts believe the asset swaps would be done on a country by country basis.
In the UK the mobile operator could link up with Virgin Media, which analysts at Liberty said could be a problem for Sky, down 7p at £10.33:
[The talks between the two are] no great surprise given the speculation but negative implications for Sky: it would mean Virgin Media, Sky’s main competitor in pay-tv, under the ownership of Vodafone, which would mean Sky with significantly less firepower than its two main rivals (BT and Vodafone/Virgin)
