Liberty Global is set to buy Multimedia Polska, one of its main competitors in Poland.
Quoting five independent sources, Puls Biznesu and Wirtualne Media report that an agreement between the parties is now ready and just needs the signatures of the heads of the two companies. Although it was previously envisaged that Tomasz Ulatowski and Ygal Ozechov, Multimedia Polska’s owners, would receive a stake in UPC Polska as part of the transaction, this is now no longer believed to be the case.
Were the deal to go ahead, it would be the most important one in the Polish cable industry since 2011, when UPC Polska’s owner acquired Aster. Given that UPC Polska and Multimedia Polska had 1.44 million and almost 827,000 subscribers respectively as of the end of Q1 this year, it would result in Liberty Global claiming a share of around 50% of the Polish cable market.
As recently as this April, Andrzej Rogowski, the president of Multimedia Polska, said that the operator was considering re-entering the stock market or finding an industry investor.
Broadband TV News notes that such a transaction could not be more timely for the Polish cable industry, given that it will for the first time be hosting Cable Congress in Warsaw later this month.
