talkmagic.co.uk

by **I.D** » Jul 2nd, '07, 17:00

There is talk of a buy-out but no details have been released yet.. :roll:

by **Mandrake** » Jul 2nd, '07, 17:09

Courtesy of moneyCNN.com:

Virgin Media, the British cable-television operator, is reportedly in talks to be bought by private-equity powerhouse Carlyle Group and could get a separate offer from a team of private-equity houses that earlier had failed to buy it, according to a number of Monday media reports

According to several reports, Carlyle's looking to bid about $10 billion for Virgin Media (NTLID) , which supplies cable, broadband Internet access and landline and mobile telecommunications to subscribers in Great Britain.

The BBC and other media outlets reported that the preliminary offer is valued at between $33 and $35 a share, compared to Friday's close of $24.37.

At $35 a share, the offer would value Virgin Media's equity at about $11.7 billion. With assumed debt factored in, the value of the offer nearly doubles to $23 billion, according to reports.

A spokesman for Virgin Media said it won't comment on market speculation.

Several reports also said that a group led by Providence Equity Partners was considering making another offer after talks failed last year.

Richard Branson holds a 10.5% stake in the company and reportedly is willing to sell part of his stake. Earlier in the year, Branson agreed to a deal in which he could borrow $225 million in return for paying Credit Suisse a share of the gains if Virgin Media's stock price rose above $31.98 on Nasdaq.

Branson also licenses the Virgin name to the company and gets paid for promotional appearances.

Virgin Media is the byproduct of a number of mergers, including the former cable operators NTL and Telewest as well as the mobile operator Virgin Mobile.

Heavy in debt, Virgin Media's facing intense competition from rivals including BSkyB (BSY) , BT Group (BT) and Carphone Warehouse.

Virgin Media no longer airs the basic cable channels of BSkyB over a pricing dispute.

For a private-equity investor, however, Virgin Media has its benefits: It has a business-to-business telecom arm that could be sold off, it doesn't pay taxes because it's unprofitable, and there could be merger savings to be realized down the road.

"Heavy in debt" doesn't sound very encouraging, no wonder my phone bills are going up!

by **beeno** » Jul 2nd, '07, 17:18

the news wrote:Shares of Virgin Media jumped nearly 18 percent, or $4.35, to $28.72 in New York trading.

Somebody thinks it's good.

by **seige** » Jul 2nd, '07, 17:22

Why can't us posh rural folk get cable?

I struggle to even receive 512k at home on broadband, and we don't get ANY terrestrial analogue channels—the only way we get TV is via Sky satellite.

Ooooooohh-Arrrrhhhhhhhhhhh, best dash, got barley to sow.

by **Mandrake** » Jul 2nd, '07, 17:30

seige wrote:best dash, got barley to sow.

What about all that wurzel mangling and wellie wangling? It won't get done all by itself y'know....

by **seige** » Jul 2nd, '07, 18:34

Got to tend to Maisy and Daisy first...

by **Mandrake** » Jul 3rd, '07, 11:35

Aren't those two of the checkout girls down at Tesco's?

by **seige** » Jul 3rd, '07, 11:51

Nope.

Mares eat oats and does eat oats, little lambs eat ivy. A kid will eat ivy too, wouldn't you?

Maisy and Daisy are mostly eating grass, and they're due for a shearing this week.

Oooh, I always think a lass looks better just after having her hair cut!

by **beeno** » Jul 3rd, '07, 13:43

cuckoo

by **I.D** » Jul 3rd, '07, 13:51

lol.. sheep, sexy beasts!!

by **moonbeam** » Jul 3rd, '07, 17:47

I think we're going slightly off-topic here - allow me to put us back on track .....
..... now where were we ..... wasn't we just talking about the Virgins Maisy and Daisy .....

...... oooh I'm sooooo confused

.

by **Jae** » Jul 4th, '07, 01:50

VIRGIN SHEEP!!!!! :shock:

Seige you lucky bar steward! No wonder you don't need cable! Nice flared wellies by the way. :lol:

As condoms used to be made out of sheeps intestines is it true you claim to practice safe sex but prefer to keep them in the packet?

by **magicdiscoman** » Jul 4th, '07, 03:11

"why would they want to have gold when they can have sheep" :?:

(carry on columbus)
i have basic cable internet thats all i need, i used to have full cable and phone but when they started to add phone calls from the last bill,same duration but changed the date, i got rid of them.
that was ntl, virgin's probably allright but I'm not in a hurry to get phone or tv.

by **Jae** » Jul 4th, '07, 04:19

We are quite happy with their broadband and phone package but really have no interest in the additional TV channels. Of course they don't allow you to customise the package you'd like, you have to opt for an inclusive deal. Will see what happens with the buy-out before making any drastic changes.

by **nikmagick** » Jul 4th, '07, 07:35

I've been with Virgin Broadband since they started years ago. I'm on an ADSL line and the service has got from bad to worse. It's got to the point where calls to Customer Service or Technical Support become the stuff of comedy. It all comes down to lack of capacity on their ADSL network (I can't comment on Cable).

It takes them ages to admit it and only some people seem to have been briefed about their lack of a decent pipe. They say they are aware of the problem and taking steps but can't say when they'll fix it. In the meantime I'm stuck with a dreadful service (often at dial-up speeds).

dreadful state of affairs as they used to be the best.

talkmagic.co.uk

For all you Virgin Media users .......

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