Liberty Global's sale of Austrian biz paves way for Voda merger plans – reports

Liberty Global is rumoured to be near to closing a deal to flog its Austrian biz to Germany's Deutsche Telekom for about $2bn (£1.5bn), which could reopen merger talks with Vodafone in Blighty. Blabbermouths briefed on the negotiations told the Financial Times that discussions between Liberty Global and DT over the unit are …

[Anonymous Coward]

"If Europe wants the creation of real alternatives to incumbents, Vodafone and Liberty are the only two guys in town"

and how long before they become incumbents themselves?

It really is fascinating to watch the slow motion train wreck that is capitalism. The mergers, acquisitions, disruptive companies and debt. I'm sure they'll be a tipping point at some time in the future probably when were down to a few companies in each industry or the debt is so great that whole economies will be taken down by a single group. Cheery thoughts for Christmas.

[Anonymous Coward]

how long before they become incumbents themselves?

How long? They already are. Useless management, complacent, costly, shite customer service, offshored everything, crap performance. Vodafone and Verminmedia have nothing to learn from each other.

Unfortunately, although being touted as a merger, I suspect that Libertyglobal have spotted that Vodafone are complete twats when it comes to M&A, and are in fact proposing to sell Virginmedia to Vodafone for a fat premium. Then for those of us unlucky enough to be customers of either business, there will be further rampant price increases to pay off the goodwill that Vodafone's talent-free board have paid for.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good points, next time don't hold back.

[Mark 110]

Malone won't sell Liberty. Its his life not his job. More likely he would acquire Voda.

[Dog Eatdog]

As a Vodafone shareholder, I hope Liberty Media will take Vodafone over.

I'm still feeling the pain from Voda's takeover of Mannesmann.

[Charlie Clark]

I'm still feeling the pain from Voda's takeover of Mannesmann.

Ouch! All that goodwill…

[Charlie Clark]

Presumably without Vodafone UK

Which has never been worth much and makes little sense for an investor once the UK leaves the single market. Will allow the rump to develop a new brand.

[Zippy's Sausage Factory]

Re: Presumably without Vodafone UK

Maybe they'll sell it to Isabel dos Santos and Vodafone customers in the UK can feel what it's like to be NOS customers over here.

Although to be fair, Vodafone Portugal is pretty bad so it'd probably be an improvement.

[macjules]

Re: Presumably without Vodafone UK

Vodafone UK customers get smothered with so much shit and get held in the dark queue for so long that you could probably grow mushrooms on them.

[Anonymous Coward]

If that gets approved

Then Voda subscribers will get F1 streamed for only an extra £9.99/month. The rest of us will be left out in the cold.

mind you, the comment about M&A tardiness is apt. Voda was the only place I ever worked at where we had a meeting to plan a meeting about another meeting.

John Cleese would have had the lot of them marching down Newbury High St immitating the Ministry of Silly Walks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If that gets approved

Voda subscribers will get F1 streamed for only an extra £9.99/month

I'd rather pay ten quid a month to watch paint drying.

[LeoP]

This might actually be a good thing locally

Full Disclosure: Yours humbly is a customer of both LG (they are called UPC here for historic reasons) and DT (T-Mobile / T-Systems / T-Whatever here) in Austria.

Having been in business with both of them, there is absolutely nothing right now that could make me think, that LG being taken over by whomever in the world will be a substantial improvment for Austrian customers. Hell: Having Ali Mustafa from the local Kebab outfit run it would be a substantial improvment.

The level of moronity achieved by the current management is a league on its own, it is simply a law of nature that DT can't do worse. Actually, my dealings with them were not too bad until now.

And don't get me started on the Helldesk. Just don't - its the day before Christmas. A tiny hint may be in order: Ringing support for a routing problem brought me to the phase of asking the answering clown from hell if he had an idea how IP routing worked within a few minutes. His bloody answer was of course: "Not at all. Have you tried restarting your modem?"

Just to make that clear: For Austrians this means replacement of the plague with a light Cholera. Which is a good thing. Sort of. The global implications are something I hope my much younger collegues will deal with in due course - this might be more Ebola-ish.

[Slx]

If they do merge, I'd say that's the end of the Virgin Media brand. It will just be Vodafone.

[Flicker]

No bad thing - the link with the Grinning Jumper stops me even thinking about taking any sort of service from them at the moment.