Liberty Global Europe

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Liberty Global Europe (formerly UGC Europe, and previously United Pan-Europe Communications or UPC, and still usually primarily trading under that brand) is Europe's biggest cable TV provider, also providing internet access, telephony and other related services. It is an operation (100% ownership since early 2004) of the US-based company Liberty Global (arose in June 2005 through a merger of UnitedGlobalCom (UGC) with Liberty Media International), which is the world's leading Cable TV provider. Liberty Global is listed on NASDAQ, but is ultimately controlled by John C. Malone.

It serves about 6.6 million analogue subscribers in 12 countries of Europe, and is the absolutely dominant provider in countries like the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic and Romania.

In Ireland, it owns nearly the entire cable network (apart from a few small operations) as well as the entire MMDS network, through its two subsidiaries, Chorus Communications and NTL Ireland. In November 2005, the Irish Competition Authority approved the sale of NTL Ireland (from NTL, via a temporary sale to Morgan Stanley) to Liberty Global, subject to conditions regarding the influence of John C. Malone on the Irish business. The Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment raised no further objections and the purchase was completed in December 2005. It is expected that the two companies will be merged into a single company, UPC Ireland, during 2006. The reason why the purchase of NTL was allowed, is presumably because NTL and Chorus are not licenced in any common areas, and therefore have never competed anyway. Collectively it is estimated that via NTL Ireland and Chorus, Liberty have approximately 1,769,292 people or 41.7%, in Ireland who have access to one of their TV services. ^[1]^[2]

In 2005, UGC Europe bought the Romanian communications company Astral Telecom for $420 million, the Swiss communications company cablecom for CHF2.8 billion, and the Slovenian communications company Telemach for EUR71 million.

Its business is divided into two units: