dabuff Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Is there any reason one would prefer LBTYA over LBTYK or vice versa? I've noted a few guru investors buying one class but not the other.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wbr Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Is there any reason one would prefer LBTYA over LBTYK or vice versa? I've noted a few guru investors buying one class but not the other.. LBTYK shares are usually cheaper because they have no voting right. By buying these you get a little more of the business for your money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dabuff Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Thank you, wbr. So the investor who has no intentions of activism etc. he is better off buying the non-voting shares in the Liberty business (I suppose the same applies for the rest of the Malone enterprises)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sriraja Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 With most of Malone's companies, there is no way an activist can do anything. He pretty much owns more than 50% of voting rights. So a class A share is pretty much equal to a class C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted January 7, 2015 Author Share Posted January 7, 2015 For those interested, here's Mike Fries speaking at the Citi conference. Some good stuff in there: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ozh7h9sy02vhl2q/2015-jan-LBTYA-citi-conf.m4a?dl=0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ni-co Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 For those interested, here's Mike Fries speaking at the Citi conference. Some good stuff in there: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ozh7h9sy02vhl2q/2015-jan-LBTYA-citi-conf.m4a?dl=0 Thank you, Liberty! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merkhet Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Interesting thought by John Malone re LiLAC from 2012. @ 34:00, he talks about Cablevision Puerto Rico, which retransmits content from the U.S. He goes on to say that if Cablevision Puerto Rico gets bought by an American operator, they could immediately cut their content costs by around $50 million because of the scale of the American operator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay21 Posted January 19, 2015 Share Posted January 19, 2015 Interesting thought by John Malone re LiLAC from 2012. @ 34:00, he talks about Cablevision Puerto Rico, which retransmits content from the U.S. He goes on to say that if Cablevision Puerto Rico gets bought by an American operator, they could immediately cut their content costs by around $50 million because of the scale of the American operator. Maybe more a broadband/charter target? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ni-co Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 http://www.libertyglobal.com/pdf/press-release/LG-Earnings-Release-Q3-14-FINAL.pdf Record Q3 Subscriber Growth of 344,000, 928,000 YTD Rebased OCF Growth of 5% in Q3 and 6% YTD YTD Adjusted Free Cash Flow of $1.4 Billion, Up 45% Completed Tender Offer for Ziggo Right on track to $2.5bn Adj. FCF for 2014. http://www.libertyglobal.com/pdf/press-release/Liberty-Global-Earnings-Q4-14-FINAL.pdf I was too optimistic there. $2.2bn FCF ($2.48 per share) in 2014. $2.5bn is their goal for 2015. They are really aggressive with taking on additional debt – leverage is 4.9x OCF now. Leaving my overoptimism aside, I think the numbers are still great. OCF growth in Germany is 9%! Btw if you want to take a look at a hot candidate for LBTYA's next acquisition target, take a look at Tele Columbus (TC1). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted February 13, 2015 Author Share Posted February 13, 2015 2.2bn FCF is still 25% growth (including Ziggo), so nothing to complain about. Listening to CC now, but so far am very happy with what I see. Update: Good that they're filling in the easy gaps in the UK, that should be nicely profitable. I like how they're going about it, building it modularly, pre-selling, already doing trials. Seems the most low-risk way to go about it. Fries: "When this program is done, we'll have bought back nearly 16bn of stock since started company." Increased current buyback program by 2bn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogermunibond Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/liberty-global-becoming-a-big-fish-risks-attracting-the-eye-of-a-shark/ Nice article on the growing chances of Lbtya being bought out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ni-co Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/liberty-global-becoming-a-big-fish-risks-attracting-the-eye-of-a-shark/ Nice article on the growing chances of Lbtya being bought out Thanks for the article! I think the chances are actually declining. LBTYA is on pace to becoming the largest broadband provider in the world. Malone's plan is working out very nicely for them. Even today I don't see a company being able to pay Malone what LBTYA is actually worth – and he knows its worth. This moment last year when he talked about LBTYA being able to buy Comcast someday? – He was dead serious. I think it still bothers him that Brian Roberts ended up with his assets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogermunibond Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 I'm curious what happens with Mike White after ATT completes its DTV acquisition. I'm not sure if he's staying around, but it would seem like the LiLAC group would be a logical spinoff and land place for him. Afterall much of the growth in DTV is in Latam, even though everyone sees it as a US company. Mexico looks like a really tough environment to do cable without partnering up. Besides Chile, what other South American countries have the scale and consumer income to allow a cable buildout? Maybe Colombia and Brazil? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ItsAValueTrap Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 I'm curious what happens with Mike White after ATT completes its DTV acquisition. I'm not sure if he's staying around, but it would seem like the LiLAC group would be a logical spinoff and land place for him. Afterall much of the growth in DTV is in Latam, even though everyone sees it as a US company. Mexico looks like a really tough environment to do cable without partnering up. Besides Chile, what other South American countries have the scale and consumer income to allow a cable buildout? Maybe Colombia and Brazil? I'm not sure Mike White likes Liberty. Liberty wanted to take control of DTV and I think White was against that. It seemed to me that DTV/White paid Malone to go away. LiLAC will have assets in Puerto Rico and in Chile. Not much overlap with DTV in South America. I think that most of the value creation is in taking poorly managed assets and operating them better. In Global's portfolio, Virgin was terribly managed and is their biggest opportunity. I think the European assets will grow earnings more than the Latam assets. Puerto Rico is mature. Not sure about Chile but I think it's close to mature. This moment last year when he talked about LBTYA being able to buy Comcast someday? – He was dead serious. I think it still bothers him that Brian Roberts ended up with his assets. On some conference call I think Malone said that he was happy with the outcome. So Charter gets to cherry pick the best assets from Time Warner's footprint. They're going after rural assets with little competition from high-speed DSL and fibre. It's tax efficient. And the two companies swap assets to consolidate their cable assets in certain areas, so that's a win-win situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ni-co Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 This moment last year when he talked about LBTYA being able to buy Comcast someday? – He was dead serious. I think it still bothers him that Brian Roberts ended up with his assets. On some conference call I think Malone said that he was happy with the outcome. So Charter gets to cherry pick the best assets from Time Warner's footprint. They're going after rural assets with little competition from high-speed DSL and fibre. It's tax efficient. And the two companies swap assets to consolidate their cable assets in certain areas, so that's a win-win situation. Sorry. This was a misunderstanding. I meant the AT&T TCI deal which was a disaster for Malone in which he lost 3bn of his then 3.5bn of net worth. AT&T completely blew it with bad acquisitions and he wasn't allowed to sell his stake. The assets ultimatly ended up at Comecast. I think this still bothers him today. At least you get the impression in he once gave (around the 10 min mark). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJDelphi Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Pure speculation here, but in thinking about Malone's experience with the old AT&T and TCI and how that disastrously failed I'm not sure he would be excited about being bought out. In interviews and the books I've read about him it really sounded like he regretted not having control in that situation so it would surprise me if he did it again. I feel like Liberty Global will be the company doing the acquiring with Malone maintaining control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wbr Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 Pure speculation here, but in thinking about Malone's experience with the old AT&T and TCI and how that disastrously failed I'm not sure he would be excited about being bought out. In interviews and the books I've read about him it really sounded like he regretted not having control in that situation so it would surprise me if he did it again. I feel like Liberty Global will be the company doing the acquiring with Malone maintaining control. I think he did not regret selling TCI for a high price. He mainly regretted not being able to sell his AT&T stock and losing billions when it collapsed. So in a future deal he might make sure that he is not locked in like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted February 18, 2015 Author Share Posted February 18, 2015 Pure speculation here, but in thinking about Malone's experience with the old AT&T and TCI and how that disastrously failed I'm not sure he would be excited about being bought out. In interviews and the books I've read about him it really sounded like he regretted not having control in that situation so it would surprise me if he did it again. I feel like Liberty Global will be the company doing the acquiring with Malone maintaining control. I think he did not regret selling TCI for a high price. He mainly regretted not being able to sell his AT&T stock and losing billions when it collapsed. So in a future deal he might make sure that he is not locked in like that. That's my impression too. If he sells, it'll be at a really high price, for a mountain of cash or unrestricted very liquid stock. Otherwise, I think he'll be the one doing the buying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loganc Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 It appears that Malone does regret selling TCI. See the following interview: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000160968 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ni-co Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 It appears that Malone does regret selling TCI. See the following interview: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000160968 Yes, I can see him selling but not for the price any of his competitors is willing to pay. I'm always amazed how open Malone is when he's talking about his strategic decisions. That has hurt him a few times, I think. It bares saying that it's great for shareholders. Probably I'd never have developed the same conviction about the long term prospects of his cable cos if it wasn't for his public reasoning why he went back into the cable business. On another note, it would make so much sense to merge LBRDA and LBTYA some time when there's the right opportunity to do it. One of the great things about Malone is that he and his lieutenants seem to be the only guys in that business that really have global ambitions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wbr Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 It appears that Malone does regret selling TCI. See the following interview: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000160968 I've always had that impression as well until I read Cable Cowboys. The book really tells a different story. Malone was fed up with the regulatory scrutiny and his balance sheet did not have the firepower to make big investments in broadband. Also he was more interested in developing Liberty. So he started looking for a buyer for TCI, but the first attempt to merge with Bell Atlantic failed. If you listen to what he says today it sounds like the initiative came from AT&T and was an irresistible offer. The truth is that he wanted to sell at a very expensive price to a buyer that was desperately seeking to be relevant in the age of the internet and he was looking for that buyer for years. But ofc the version he tells the media today sounds much nicer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ni-co Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 It appears that Malone does regret selling TCI. See the following interview: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000160968 I've always had that impression as well until I read Cable Cowboys. The book really tells a different story. Malone was fed up with the regulatory scrutiny and his balance sheet did not have the firepower to make big investments in broadband. Also he was more interested in developing Liberty. So he started looking for a buyer for TCI, but the first attempt to merge with Bell Atlantic failed. If you listen to what he says today it sounds like the initiative came from AT&T and was an irresistible offer. The truth is that he wanted to sell at a very expensive price to a buyer that was desperately seeking to be relevant in the age of the internet and he was looking for that buyer for years. But ofc the version he tells the media today sounds much nicer. I think the two statements don't contradict each other. Now, with hindsight, he regrets what seemed to be a good idea at the time. He underestimated the risk of not being in control of the company he had his net worth invested in. I don't think he'd repeat that mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rogermunibond Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 I'm curious what happens with Mike White after ATT completes its DTV acquisition. I'm not sure if he's staying around, but it would seem like the LiLAC group would be a logical spinoff and land place for him. Afterall much of the growth in DTV is in Latam, even though everyone sees it as a US company. Mexico looks like a really tough environment to do cable without partnering up. Besides Chile, what other South American countries have the scale and consumer income to allow a cable buildout? Maybe Colombia and Brazil? I'm not sure Mike White likes Liberty. Liberty wanted to take control of DTV and I think White was against that. It seemed to me that DTV/White paid Malone to go away. LiLAC will have assets in Puerto Rico and in Chile. Not much overlap with DTV in South America. I think that most of the value creation is in taking poorly managed assets and operating them better. In Global's portfolio, Virgin was terribly managed and is their biggest opportunity. I think the European assets will grow earnings more than the Latam assets. Puerto Rico is mature. Not sure about Chile but I think it's close to mature. So what are the attractions of LiLAC as a rollup vehicle? Would they acquire cable assets in new countries and just operate them better/efficiently? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted February 18, 2015 Author Share Posted February 18, 2015 So what are the attractions of LiLAC as a rollup vehicle? Would they acquire cable assets in new countries and just operate them better/efficiently? IMO their advantage in rolling up the region would be that as a tracker, they would benefit from Global's balance sheet and scale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ni-co Posted February 18, 2015 Share Posted February 18, 2015 So what are the attractions of LiLAC as a rollup vehicle? Would they acquire cable assets in new countries and just operate them better/efficiently? IMO their advantage in rolling up the region would be that as a tracker, they would benefit from Global's balance sheet and scale. …and thereby using LiLAC shares as an acquisition currency. I couldn't come up with any other rationale for the LiLAC tracking stock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now