Virgin Media confirms Liberty bid approach

LONDON (Reuters) - John Malone's cable group Liberty Global has approached Britain's No. 2 pay-TV operator Virgin Media about making a bid for the firm, the UK group said on Tuesday.

Virgin Media, which has a market value of $10.6 billion, was formed by the merger of cable groups Telewest and NTL and mobile operator Virgin Mobile. It sells cable TV, telephony and broadband and competes with market leader BSkyB , part owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp .

"Virgin Media confirms that it is in discussions with Liberty Global, a leading international cable company, concerning a possible transaction," it said in a brief statement. "Any such transaction would be subject to regulatory and other conditions."

Virgin spent the first few years of its existence being drawn into repeated spats with Murdoch's BSkyB over the ownership and sale of exclusive content. However under Chief Executive Neil Berkett, the group moved away from that approach to slowly build the customer base and pay down debt.

Malone's Liberty is active in 13 countries, including 11 in Europe. It has recently increased its stake in Belgian operator Telenet to 58 percent.

Although it is harder to secure synergies from cable operations in different countries, cable groups have been performing strongly in recent years, as they lure customers with faster broadband speeds than traditional telecoms firms.

(Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by James Davey)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/virgin-media-confirms-liberty-bid-approach-072235722--finance.html

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