Liberty Global CEO Michael Fries is confident European authorities will soon approve his company’s bid for Ziggo, but is not interested in a much-rumored deal with Vodafone, he told CNBC.
“We will be patient as we’ve always been, but it does look pretty good,” Fries told CNBC on Friday (see video).
The European Commission is set to rule on Liberty Global’s takeover bid of Holland’s largest cable operator Ziggo by November 3. By acquiring Ziggo, the company would merge operations of Ziggo with those of UPC Nederland, the country’s second largest operator.
Fries’ optimism was fueled by comments from Joaquin Almunia, European commissioner for competition, who said “I don’t expect any other negative decisions (on mergers) until the end of October,” according to Dow Jones, at an annual competition conference in Italy.
“We have always been pretty confident that the deal would get approved and the remarks that he made today seemed to confirm that confidence, so we’re hopeful,” Fries told CNBC, during the CTAM EuroSummit’14 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
