Vodafone, Liberty talks broke down on asset values

“Vodafone [on Monday] announces that discussions with Liberty Global have terminated”.

Vodafone Group Plc has seen its shares stumble after announcing that asset swap talks with Liberty Global have ended without any deal being made.

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 a year ago.

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. While specific details of those assets were never revealed, it was widely speculated that Vodafone would partner with Virgin Media to become a quad-play provider offering TV, broadband, telephone, and mobile services to customers.

Talks to allow the world’s second largest mobile operator, Vodafone, to branch out into broadband and television have broken down without agreement, both sides have confirmed.

Malone said he was of the view that a deal between the two companies could create “enormous shareholder value if we could work it out”.

However, it ruled out full-blown potential £120bn merger talks that had always been rumoured.

Meanwhile, Malone had previously espoused the benefits of synergies in Germany and the Netherlands.

Earlier this month, Nordic carriers TeliaSonera AB and Telenor ASA scrapped the merger of their Danish businesses amid European Union opposition, signaling Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is taking a tough stance on phone carrier combinations.