Liberty Global has made a voluntary and conditional takeover bid for telecoms provider Telenet after previously suspending Telenet’s stake.

Liberty Global, Telenet’s majority shareholder, wants to secure the remaining shares in the Mechelen-based provider. The American company is making a voluntary and conditional offer for this. Liberty Global already owns 59.2 percent of Telenet. The provider still holds 3.12 percent of the shares itself, 37.7 percent are traded on the stock exchange. Liberty Global would like to get their hands on everything.

The majority shareholder is prepared to pay EUR 22 per share, adjusted for Telenet’s proposed dividend, before closing the transaction. The offer is 59 percent above Telenet’s closing price on March 15, 2023, when the stock was suspended after showing irregularities, presumably because the news was leaked prematurely to some speculators. The FSMA is investigating exactly what happened.

No surprise

The takeover bid comes as no surprise. The price of the Telenet share has been low for some time, partly because of the forthcoming major investments in a new fiber optic network. The provider wants to work with Fluvius for this, but this cooperation has not yet been approved by Europe. While the competitor Proximus, together with joint ventures, is bringing new fibers into the ground at a rapid pace.

In addition, the auction of radio frequencies only took place for 5G. This opened the door for the entry of two new vendors: Citymesh and Digi. Telenet is therefore in competition. With the stock price low, the timing of Liberty Global’s delisting of Telenet is quite interesting. This allows the parent company to keep all profits without having to pay dividends to shareholders. Telenet’s board of directors unanimously supports the plan.