Liberty International in discussions to devolve infrastructure enterprise
Liberty Global is reportedly in discussions with its partners about how to separate its network resources from its service businesses.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Liberty is looking to spin off its cables and fiber and leave cellular, Internet and TV services.
Spain’s Telefonica, which jointly owns Virgin Media’s O2 business in the UK, is said to be open to applying the idea to the recently merged operations. Liberty also jointly owns VodafoneZiggo in the Netherlands, Telenet in Belgium and Sunrise UPC in Switzerland.
The consulting company Accenture was commissioned to implement the project.
In the past few weeks, it has been reported that Liberty had asked Goldman Sachs to investigate a possible sale of the company’s 3,000 transmission towers. There were also exploratory talks between Comcast’s own Sky and Virgin Media O2 about the possibility of using their fiber optic infrastructure.
There is excitement in the telecommunications industry from companies that feel they would rather focus on their service than maintain the infrastructure on which they depend.
Vodafone brought its 82,000-masted fleet to the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in March, while Orange outsourced 25,000 locations in France and Spain to the independent TOTEM in May.
Liberty Global hasn’t commented on the moves, but Chief Executive Officer Mike Fries has previously said the companies are undervalued and is also looking into potential IPOs.
