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.
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.
View: BBC News
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.
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.
View: BBC News
1. Borrow billons from bank
2. Buy company
3. Take out loan in company's name from bank
4. Pay back 'private equity group'
5. Bleed company dry with outrageous 'management fees'
6. Sell off as scrap.
Sky must be laughing there arse off.
Having private backers focussing on the business can sometimes be better than lots of shareholders with their own agendas.
Sky should be worried - not laughing!
Last edited by Cy Bones on 04 Jul 2007 - 11:24
Isnt it like that now? It is more or less ... Support is now chargeable at 25p per minute £1 if its a none VM fault, ie your router or changing PC settigns. And the throttling is there like that on the 20Mb package, you get 25% speed if you go over their limit
Whoever it is, they'd better sort out the CS... It's bloody getting worse by the day!
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