Liberty has a 25 per cent stake in Telewest the UK cable group
Posted in General on 21. Oct, 2010
Liberty has a 25 per cent stake in Telewest, the UK cable group. Compere will run the network on an open access basis and provide a voice upgrade.Thwarted in Germany, Mr Malone, known as the “king of cable”, is already turning to the UK instead. An aggressive US company wielding this much power over German media raised alarms at the cartel office. “Our business model is a 180 degree different approach to Liberty and therefore does not run into the same kind of concerns,” Mr Crema said.As well as the voice issue, Liberty was proposing a vertically integrated model, where it would control both the distribution network and the content on it. He said Compere’s bid would not raise the same regulatory objections.
Compere Associates, a venture capital company based in London, yesterday said it was ready to spring into action as a replacement buyer.Tom Crema, a partner at the company, said it considered €5.5bn to be an “appropriate” price for the business. competition in monopolistically structured markets”.Deutsche Telekom is labouring under a debt pile and was relying on the cable sale to help cut it to manageable levels.The German telecoms group will now have to urgently find another buyer for the cable business. The objections come despite a pledge from Liberty to invest €8.3bn on the German network.According to a leak of the cartel office’s decision, it will say that “the [Liberty cable takeover] plan would reduce … The watchdog is concerned that Liberty, which is based in the US, would occupy a monopoly position and is not willing to upgrade the network to allow it to take voice traffic, which would compete with Deutsche Telekom’s fixed line business. John Malone’s Liberty Media is set to be blocked in its attempt to become Germany’s leading cable operator, a move that is likely to see the company turn its attentions to the UK.
The German cartel office is today expected to formally reject Liberty’s €5.5bn (£3.4bn) bid for Deutsche Telekom’s cable assets, which distribute TV. We’ve seen in the second-half a 42 per cent increase in sales over the first half, and we’ve seen sales start the year much stronger than we did last year,” said Jim Sutcliffe, the chief executive.Old Mutual shares closed up 3p at 93p, valuing it at £3.48bn..
The South African currency fell 35 per cent against the pound during the second half of last year.The poor performance of Old Mutual’s overseas operations contrasted with a better-than-expected showing from Nedcor, South Africa’s number two bank, which lifted profits by 26 per cent to 3.8bn rand (£306m).”Our business in South Africa has started the year well. Its profits fell from £26m to just £2m last year, and 10 per cent of the workforce have already gone.Old Mutual was also forced to write down the carrying value of its investment in the South African technology group Dimension Data, which it holds through its 53 per cent stake in the Nedcor bank.The company warned its sterling profits would be hit by the continued weakness of the rand this year amid mounting concern over the long-term effects of South Africa’s Aids epidemic and the impact of Zimbabwe on the country’s economy.Group operating profits for 2001 were up 11 per cent in rand terms, but fell by 6 per cent to £856m in sterling. We didn’t think they would drop this much.”Gerrard may cut front-office staff in response to the continued weakness in the UK retail investment market. Under UK accounting rules, companies are obliged to reassess the value of acquisitions one year after completion and annually thereafter.Mr Roberts rejected suggestions the company overpaid for the acquisitions, but said further acquisitions were not on the agenda “UAM might not have been around if we’d waited We factored in that the markets would drop.