John Malone’s Liberty Global (LGI) is working to develop a pan-European MVNO platform with launches planned for Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK.
LGI senior vice president Manuel Kohnstamm told Bloomberg that the company will…
John Malone’s Liberty Global (LGI) is working to develop a pan-European MVNO platform with launches planned for Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK.
LGI senior vice president Manuel Kohnstamm told Bloomberg that the company will be able to keep margins high as it runs a single billing system, back office and back haul connecting the core network to smaller sub-networks.
The London-based cableco, which bought the UK’s Virgin Media last year and agreed to take over Dutch cableco Ziggo this January, has reached “a critical mass”, Kohnstamm said, adding that it is large enough to be competitive in terms of hardware, technology, content and research and development.
The cableco remains attuned to potential takeover targets, particularly small and medium-sized companies, Kohnstamm said but noted that it is not actively seeking out acquisitions.
In Kohnstamm’s view, smaller-sized companies are likely to be interested in joining the LGI group given the challenges involved with competing with incumbents.
He pointed out that Belgian cableco Telenet, which LGI made an unsuccessful attempt to take over in 2013, isn’t among the smaller-sized companies it is currently keeping an eye out for. Liberty is happy to be the company’s controlling shareholder, he added.
Late last year, Libety Global hired Graeme Oxby, a former executive director of Virgin Media’s mobile and landline telephone division, to head up its European mobile operations. At the time, LGI said it would develop the group’s mobile operations so it had full MVNOs in the majority of the markets it operates in.
LGI is the largest international cableco with operations in 14 countries in Europe and Latin America. The company aims to complete its €4.9bn (US$6.7bn) takeover of Ziggo, which still requires regulatory approval, in the second half of the year.
