Dutch cable operator Ziggo is not in talks with Liberty Global, said CEO Bernard Dijkhuizen to Het Financieele Dagblad.
Ziggo announced its IPO plans this Wednesday, February 29. “This is not a two-track strategy, we don’t need a merger to be successful,” the Dutch paper quoted him as saying.
During the past few months Liberty Global’s CEO Mike Fries has expressed a number of times his company’s interest in Holland’s largest cable operator.
However, last September Liberty Global said it no longer expects to acquire Ziggo. “We’re nowhere at this moment [with regards to Ziggo].There are no talks. They tell us they are committed to an initial public offering,” said Fries, according to Het Financieele Dagblad at the time.
But on February 23, during the reporting of Liberty Global’s 2011 results, Fries said that he would considering expanding in the Netherlands if an opportunity arose.
Ziggo is owned by private equity firms Warburg Pincus and Cinven, and is the result of a tripartite fusion within the cable industry, which started with Warburg Pincus purchasing Multikabel in 2005. The following year Warburg Pincus and Cinven bought Casema and combined the operator with Multikabel.
In 2006, the two companies acquired the cable assets of Essent (@Home) and changed the name of the resulting entity to Ziggo. The operator is the biggest cabler in the country with over 3 million homes connected.
Should Liberty Global acquire Ziggo and merge it with UPC Nederland, the two combined networks would serve over 5 million households.
