Vodafone ends talks with Liberty Global over asset swaps

This month, John Malone, Liberty’s chairman, said the two sides were struggling to find common ground about what form a deal might take.

Talks between Vodafone and cable company Liberty Global, owner of Virgin Media, have ended.

In June, the mobile phone network had said it was talking to Liberty Global over “a possible exchange of selected assets between the two companies”.

The companies, long rumoured as potential merger candidates, announced in June that they were in discussions about swapping some operations.

The asset-swap discussions centred on “Liberty’s German cable assets and cable assets elsewhere in Europe”, the source said.

He told Bloomberg that “conceptually there could be some real value created but realistically we haven’t been able to figure out away to do that that’s mutually successful”.

Analysts had said a tie-up in Britain, where Liberty owns cable and broadband company Virgin Media, would have made sense.

There has been speculation about Vodafone’s future since its 130 billion United States dollar (£78 billion) sale of its 45% stake in U.S. business Verizon Wireless, to joint venture partner Verizon, which completed a year ago.

European shares slipped on Monday, with Vodafone lagging after ending talks with Liberty Global while Spanish shares tracked other markets after separatists won a majority of seats in an election in Catalonia.