Vodafone announced on Monday it has ended talks with Liberty Global over a possible asset swap.
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Liberty, which owns Virgin Media’s United Kingdom business, among other companies across Europe, had been in talks with Vodafone over the summer, with discussions rumoured to have been underway since December of past year.
This month, John Malone, Liberty’s chairman, said the two sides were struggling to find common ground about what form a deal might take.
It is worth considering that mergers between Vodafone and Liberty Global in certain European markets would have faced scrutiny from the European Commission.
Liberty relies on Virgin Media’s billions in accumulated losses to reduce its tax burden, a priority for its libertarian founder throughout his long career in telecoms.
The two firms never disclosed which assets they were thinking of swapping. The combination of O2 and Three, local units of Telefonica SA and CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd., will create the country’s biggest mobile operator while BT Group Plc’s acquisition of EE will make it the largest “quadruple- play” service provider. For reporting purposes, Liberty combines figures for the United Kingdom and Ireland and claims its networks reach 13,512,900 premises across both countries.
A deal between the companies would have reshaped Europe’s telecommunications and cable industries and also attracted antitrust scrutiny.
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Analysts said at the time that a deal could result in either Virgin Media or Vodafone’s United Kingdom mobile network changing hands.
