Liberty Global is reportedly in discussions with its partners as to how it can separate out its network assets from its service businesses.
According to a report in Bloomberg, Liberty is looking to spin-off its cables and fibre, leaving mobile, internet and TV services.
Spain’s Telefonica, which jointly owns the Virgin Media O2 business in the UK, is said to be open to applying the idea to the recently merged operations. Liberty also jointly owns VodafoneZiggo in the Netherlands, Telenet in Belgium and Sunrise UPC in Switzerland.
The consultancy Accenture has been hired to work on the projected.
In recent weeks it has been reported that Liberty had asked Goldman Sachs to assess a possible sale of the company’s 3,000 transmission masts. There have also been exploratory talks between Comcast-owned Sky and Virgin Media O2 over the possibility of using the latter’s fibre infrastructure.
There is a buzz around the telecoms industry through companies that feel they would rather concentrate on their service than maintain the infrastructure on which they depend.
Vodafone floated its 82,000 strong mast fleet on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in March, while Orange hived off 25,000 sites in France and Spain to the independent TOTEM in May.
Liberty Global has not commented on the moves, but Chief Executive Officer Mike Fries has previously said the companies are undervalued and it is also examining potential IPOs.
