Liberty Global

Liberty Global plc
Public limited company
Traded as NASDAQ: LBTYA
NASDAQ: LBTYB
NASDAQ: LBTYK
NASDAQ-100 Components (LBTYA and LBTYK)
Industry Telecommunications
Media
Founded Douglas County, Colorado, United States (2005)
Headquarters London, England, UK
Key people
 John C. Malone (Chairman)
Michael Fries (President and CEO)
Products Broadband internet, cable television, telephony, mobile, direct-broadcast satellite
Revenue Increase US$ 18.248 billion (2014)[1]
Increase US$ 02.228 billion (2014)[1]
Total assets Increase US$ 72.841 billion (2014)[1]
Total equity Increase US$ 14.116 billion (2014)[1]
Number of employees
 35,000 (31 December 2013)[2]
Website www.libertyglobal.com

Liberty Global plc is an American, British-based telecommunications and television company. It was formed in 2005 by the merger of the international arm of Liberty Media and UGC (UnitedGlobalCom), and is one of the largest broadband internet service providers in the world.[3]

Since 2013, Liberty Global is the world's largest international cable company, with operations in 14 countries, and 35,000 employees. As of 31 December 2013, it had an annual revenue of $17.3 billion. Its cable services pass 47 million homes, with 24.5 million customers or 48.3 million RGUs (video, internet, and voice subscribers).[4]

Liberty Global is headquartered in London, with offices in Amsterdam and in Douglas County, Colorado.

History

On 7 June 2013, Liberty Global completed the acquisition of British cable group Virgin Media for $24 billion. In January 2013, Liberty Global raised its stake in Belgium-based Telenet from 50.2% to 58%. Liberty agreed on 28 October to sell Chellomedia for $1.035 billion except for its Benelux unit to AMC Networks.[5] It was reported that this acquisition would make Liberty Global the largest broadband company in the world.[3]

On 27 January 2014, Liberty Global announced it would be acquiring Dutch cable company Ziggo for €10 billion. The acquisition was completed in November 2014, when the services of UPC Nederland began to be merged into the new business.[6]

On 17 July 2014, Liberty Global acquired a 6.4% stake in ITV plc, valued at £481 million.[7]

On 3 July 2015 it was announced that Liberty Global (via its Irish cable company Virgin Media Ireland) had bought The TV3 Group for €80 million from Doughty Hanson. The deal may also deliver a further €7million should TV3 meet certain performance targets. The deal will need regulatory approval by Competition and Consumer Protection Commission as well as a media plurality test by the Department of Communications.[8]

There has been speculation[9] of a possible merger between Liberty Global and Vodafone.

On 17 November, 2015, Liberty Global announced its pending acquisition of Cable & Wireless Communications.[10]

Platform

Horizon TV

Horizon TV is today Liberty Global's flagship platform with more than 10 million first-generation Horizon TV devices sold.

The first-generation Horizon TV is a cross-platform media platform and high-definition DVR/PVR set-top-box with 6 DVB-C Tuners, (with the Linux for embedded systems hardware manufactured by Samsung as model "SMT-G7400"), which uses XBMC Media Center software as its main graphical user interface on-top a hidden proprietary middle-ware framework for video on demand and handling DRM for streaming multimedia.[11] It was announced in September 2012, and was introduced by Dutch cable operator UPC Nederland under the brand name "UPC Horizon TV".[12]

The second-generation Horizon TV platform is however no longer based on XBMC, as the second-generation Horizon TV instead uses technology from RDK and other vendors. In some deployments for low end devices there has also been some use of ActiveVideo's CloudTV platform.[13][14]

Markets

Americas

Liberty Global's operations in the Americas consists of Liberty Puerto Rico, a provider of pay TV, Internet, and telephone services in Puerto Rico and VTR, a Chilean cable provider of television, telephone, mobile and internet services.

Through a pending acquisition of Cable and Wireless Communications, Liberty Global could become owner of the largest broadband provider in the Caribbean, FLOW, as well as a key player in mobile (as said broadband provider also operates a mobile network under said brand name since July 2015) and owner of offshore links to and from the region as well.

Australia

Liberty Global owned 20% of Showtime movie channels until October 2012 when the channels were taken over by Foxtel.

Europe

Liberty Global serves 12 countries in Europe, and is the largest cable operator in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Liberty Global Reports Fiscal 2014 Results" (PDF). Liberty Global. 13 February 2015. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  2. ↑ "Form 10-K". Liberty Global. 2013. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
  3. 1 2 "Liberty Global to buy Virgin Media for $23.3bn". BBC News. 6 February 2013. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  4. ↑ "About Us". Liberty Global. Retrieved 13 February 2014.
  5. ↑ Tartaglione, Nancy. (28 October 2013) AMC Networks To Pay $1B For Liberty Global’s Chellomedia. Deadline.com. Accessed on 28 October 2013.
  6. ↑ Briel, Robert (27 January 2014). "Liberty Global to acquire Ziggo for €10bn". Broadband TV News. Retrieved 27 January 2014.
  7. ↑ Clover, Julian (17 July 2014). "Liberty Global makes £481m investment in ITV". Broadband TV News. Retrieved 17 July 2014.
  8. ↑ "UPC Ireland to acquire broadcaster TV3 in deal worth up to €87m". RTÉ News. 3 July 2015.
  9. ↑ Thomson, Amy (17 September 2014). "Vodafone-Liberty Global Deal Is Way to End Duel: Real M&A". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 8 July 2015.
  10. ↑ "Liberty Global to Acquire Cable and Wireless in $5.3 Billion Deal". Bloomberg. 17 November 2015. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
  11. ↑ http://opensource.samsung.com/reception/receptionSub.do?method=sub&sub=T&menu_item=tv_n_video&classification1=set-top_box Samsung Opensource Release Center TV & Video Set-top Box SMT-G7400
  12. ↑ http://www.libertyglobal.com/PDF/horizon/Horizon-TV-FINAL.pdf Liberty Global Launches Horizon TV
  13. ↑ http://www.digitaltveurope.net/102442/liberty-global-outlines-horizon-upgrade-plans-future-vision-and-lessons/ Liberty Global outlines Horizon upgrade plans, future vision and lessons
  14. ↑ http://www.digitaltveurope.net/99942/liberty-partners-with-activevideo-for-horizon/ Liberty partners with ActiveVideo for Horizon

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, January 22, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.