Virgin Media going to be taken over

[Mickey]

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=3>With all the Crap from Virgin media,
i hope the new company do a better job


Equity firm targets Virgin Media

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</TD><TD> </TD><TD vAlign=bottom width=351>By Robert Peston
Business Editor, BBC News
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<!-- S IIMA --><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=203 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD> Virgin Media has been involved in a bitter dispute with Sky

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- E IIMA --><!-- S SF -->Virgin Media, the UK's leading cable television company, is set to be taken private for more than £5.5bn.
Carlyle, one of the world's leading private equity groups, has made a preliminary offer of between $33 (£16.50) to $35 per share for Virgin.
Shares in Virgin, which is listed on the US Nasdaq rather than in London, closed on Friday at $24.37 per share.
Sir Richard Branson is the largest investor in Virgin Media, which has 9m customers and a £4bn annual turnover. <!-- E SF -->
The offer would value Virgin at approximately £5.6bn.
The total value of the takeover deal, including Virgin's debt of almost £6bn, would be about £11.5bn.
If it goes through, it would be the second biggest takeover of a British business by private equity, after Boots.
Auction plans
However, it is too early to say whether Carlyle will end up as the owner of Virgin Media, since other private equity firms are interested in making their own offers for it.
Virgin's board has asked its investment bankers, Goldman Sachs, to conduct an auction of the business.
It is believed Virgin's managers feel the business would be in a better position to grow as a private company.
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The tidal wave of private-equity takeovers shows no sign of abating


Robert Peston,
BBC business editor



<!-- S ILIN -->Read more at Robert's blog
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They would be freed from the onerous requirement to make quarterly announcements of earnings and could be less fettered in the way they invest in the business.
Providence, another private equity group, is believed to have put together a consortium of private equity players to make an offer for Virgin.
A banker said there was likely to be interest in Virgin from "several other private equity groups".
Sources close to Sir Richard Branson say he would like to remain a shareholder in Virgin as and when it has been taken private.
It is believed that most of the other leading Virgin shareholders would be keen to sell at somewhere around the price offered by Carlyle, although the Virgin board believes the business could be worth around $40 a share.
Legal dispute
Following pressure from leading shareholders, in May Virgin asked Goldman to carry out detailed research on what the business is worth - known as a valuation exercise.
Virgin is in a bitter legal dispute with British Sky Broadcasting following the failure of the two businesses to reach an agreement on terms for Sky to be carried on Virgin's cable channels. In its last results, Virgin said it had three million users of its television services, 3.4 million broadband customers, 4.5 million subscribers to its mobile phone service and 4.1 million fixed-line telephone customers. It is believed that Goldman will take around six weeks to whittle down the actual and potential bidders for Virgin to a definitive short list.<!-- E BO -->

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[diablos]

oh ffs and they havent even sorted out my 20mb yet.

[Mickey]

oh ffs and they havent even sorted out my 20mb yet.

shht, sorry to hear, perhaps we can sign a petition on behalf of all them people not got it Im on 20 now but its actually slower than my 4 m bb, Dunno why

[blacksheep]

I saw my speed degrade as Virgin took over.

[diablos]

I saw my speed degrade as Virgin took over.

Same here its piss poor if i use it.

[Termy]

I hope that both the TV and Broadband services will get much better too.

At the moment they are both very poor for the price you pay. I dont think I have ever had the BB speeds that I actually pay for.

[tom999]

I saw my speed degrade as Virgin took over.

Same here, quite annoying considering they were touting 20meg but unable to leave my 4 uncapped

Tom

[wonkyfox]

Still ain`t got Skyone back yet!!

[Freddy]

Fuck my face what fun!

[Undertaker]

I hope that both the TV and Broadband services will get much better too.

At the moment they are both very poor for the price you pay. I dont think I have ever had the BB speeds that I actually pay for.

you pay?

my 20mb clone runs slower than my 2mb legit during peak times,

how crap is that

[Over Carl]

I know s*y doesn't have many fans on this board, but if I was still paying full whack for a service barely better than freeview, well, I would stop. To me, kinda like buying a sandwich at full price when you know someone's already nicked the filling.

Disclaimer: I do agree s*y is far from perfect, but at least some slight benefit is received in return for a slightly annoying sum of money.

[Fusen]

I'll just post my comment I made on the thinkbroadband.com forum about this

if you look at the traditional way private equity groups handle these sorts of deals, they buy a big brand which is failing for cheap, start laying off jobs and do whatever they can to reduce outgoing costs, once they are starting to make a tiny profit due to ripping the company apart, they'll try and break the company into smaller chunks to sell on at a profit, so you could see the broadband the tv and phone sections all split up and sold to 3 different companies if it earns them the most money.

Although that sounds like scare mongering and being anti private equity, they normally aren't a good thing for the average consumer as the whole point of these rich people putting their money together is so they can get MORE money back in a short time frame.

I reckon you'll see a lot worse service from VM if it's bought out than you are currently seeing.

In terms of upgrading the infrastructure etc, why would a company who simply wants to make a quick buck invest millions/hundreds of millions when it'll take a long period to finally see a profit.