Liberty Global is putting the final touches on an acquisition of Dutch cable operator Ziggo, and the two companies could announce an agreement as early as mid-January, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg. Liberty Global and Ziggo aim to announce a friendly deal and are hammering out a final acquisition price and other terms, the report said. At its current share price, Ziggo is valued at around EUR 6.7 billion.
Liberty Global already owns almost 30 percent of Ziggo, and Ziggo confirmed in December that it was discussing a full takeover with Liberty, the owner of the other major cable network in the Netherlands, UPC. According to the Bloomberg report, the two still need to decide whether Rene Obermann, the former Deutsche Telekom CEO who took over at Ziggo at the start of this year, will stay at the Dutch company if it is bought by Liberty. The companies are also discussing how to protect jobs once Ziggo’s operations are combined with UPC, the people said.
