Liberty Global publishes prospectus for Telenet acquisition

Liberty Global has published the prospectus for its planned acquisition of the shares in Belgium’s Telenet that it does not already own.

Liberty is making a voluntary and conditional public takeover bid, offering €22 per share, deducting the €1 gross dividend approved by Telenet’s ordinary general meeting of April 26.

The offer is conditional on Liberty securing at least 95% of Telenet’s share at closing. The prospectus comes with a valuation report by Lazard BV/srl. Liberty currently owns 59.18% of Telenet, while an additional 3.12% of shares is held by the Belgian company itself.

Telenet’s board have provided a response memo recommending acceptance of the memo.

Both prospectus and response memo have been approved by the Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA).

The initial acceptance period for the offer will run from tomorrow until July 12 at 16:00 CET unless extended. Liberty will announce the results of the acceptance period on July 19 ahead of paying for the shares on July 26.

If the minimum threshold conditions are met, Liberty will follow up with a squeeze-out bid under the same conditions as the offer.

Liberty made a cash offer to acquire the whole of Telenet in March, offering a 59% premium on closing price of March 15 and a 52% premium on the volume weighted average trading privcxe for a month prior.

Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries has previously said that he believes acquiring the whole of Telenet makes sense because it would be easier to build value as a private company.

Telenet recently secured a green light to go ahead and create a fibre-building JV with municipalities-owned utility and networks provider Fluvius.

Telenet’s rival Orange this week completed its acquisition of Wallonia and Brussels region operator Voo. One of the conditions of that deal was to give Telenet access to the pair’s combined network.