Liberty Global is competing with Vodafone for Spain’s largest cable operator, Ono, reports the Financial Times, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter. Both Liberty and Vodafone are currently vying for cable assets throughout Europe and Spain remains one of a handful of European countries, along with France, where Liberty is not already present. Its bid for the Spanish operator, which is also working on a flotation on the Madrid stock exchange later this year, would be in the region of EUR 7 billion according to the report. Ono’s private equity shareholders would be prepared to sell their stakes if bids for the whole company were attractive enough compared with the valuation they could get in an IPO, one of the sources said.
However, no offer has yet been discussed by Ono’s board of directors and a flotation remains the most likely outcome, the report cautions. Ono posted a EUR 15 million loss in the nine months to September 2013 but remains an attractive asset due to the 7 million households covered by its fibre optic network, as well as its 3.7 million RGUs and over 1 million mobile customers.
