Lone Tree – Liberty Media International shareholders approved the company’s merger with UnitedGlobalCom on Wednesday, leading to the creation of one of the largest cable-programming, distribution and telecommunications companies outside of the United States – Liberty Global Inc.
A few dozen people attended Liberty Media International’s first and only shareholders meeting at the Denver Marriott South Park Meadows hotel. It was led by longtime cable-television executive John Malone, Liberty Media International’s chairman and chief executive, who concluded the voting in less than 10 minutes.
Liberty Media International’s $3.5 billion stock-swap purchase of the 47 percent of UnitedGlobalCom it didn’t own closed later Wednesday in New York. The new company has operations in 18 countries and more than 25 million subscribers. UnitedGlobalCom shareholders approved the merger a day earlier.
“I think it’s very exciting. The world is a big place,” Malone said of the acquisition. “For those of us who grew up building U.S. cable, many of the lessons are parallel.”
Liberty Global will trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the same symbols as Liberty Media International’s stock, “LBTYA” and “LBTYB.”
Last year, Malone spun off Liberty Media Group’s international holdings to form Liberty Media International.
It was his effort to simplify the structure of Liberty Media Group and to make the stock of both companies more attractive to investors. Liberty Media International already held 53 percent of UnitedGlobalCom and purchased the remaining interest Wednesday.
Malone has become chairman of Liberty Global, and United GlobalCom president and CEO Michael Fries assumes those same positions at the new company.
“We’re primarily focused on expansion into Eastern Europe. We’re looking at acquisitions in Western Europe that would fill out the complement of businesses we have,” Malone said. “We’re going to aggressively develop in Japan in both cable and programming, where we’re already the market leader in both.”
Liberty Global owns a 45 percent stake in Jupiter Telecommunications Co., Japan’s largest cable-TV company with 3 million subscribers.
When the deal was announced in January, some analysts dubbed it “TCI: Take Two,” referring to Malone’s massive U.S. cable conglomerate, Tele-Communications Inc., which at its height in 1997 had 14 million subscribers. The TCI systems are now part of Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable company.
“I think it looks a lot like TCI, but international instead of domestic. The one thing we’ll probably do a little bit differently is we’ll tend to want to own and run more of our assets,” Malone said of the comparison. “In TCI’s case, at one point we had 42 partnerships that we didn’t run as well as all of the businesses we did run. We may try to keep Liberty Global a little simpler.”
The deal helps Liberty Global further penetrate overseas cable, phone and broadband Internet markets, one shareholder said.
“I think they’re better poised. It’s a good opportunity,” said Mark Greenberg of the AIM Leisure Fund in Denver, which held 200,000 shares of Liberty Media International.
Staff writer Kimberly S. Johnson can be reached at 303-820-1088 or kjohnson@denverpost.com.
Global’s reach
A look at the new company
Liberty Global Inc.:
Its biggest operations
Portion of operating cash flow
Japan 38.87%
Netherlands 23.82%
Other Europe 19.21%
Austria 7.38%
Chile 7.17%
France 3.56%
What it sells
Analog video TV, digital video TV, Internet access and telephone service – all over cable-TV lines
In certain markets, direct-to-home satellite TV
Programming networks carried by Liberty and third parties
Source: Liberty Global
