{"id":22150,"date":"2020-05-04T09:41:40","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T08:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=22150"},"modified":"2020-05-06T08:46:32","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T07:46:32","slug":"o2-officially-confirms-merger-talks-with-uk-isp-virgin-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2020\/05\/o2-officially-confirms-merger-talks-with-uk-isp-virgin-media.html","title":{"rendered":"O2 Officially Confirms Merger Talks with UK ISP Virgin Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

The parent of mobile operator O2<\/a> UK, Telefonica, has this morning confirmed last week’s speculation<\/a> – via a brief filing to Spain’s market regulator – that they’ve officially opened merger talks with the parent (Liberty Global) of UK cable broadband ISP and TV operator Virgin Media<\/a>. But no deal has been agreed and the talks could still fail.<\/p>\n

The two paragraph long statement merely confirms that the “negotiation phase<\/em>” has started and there is “no guarantee, at this point, of its precise terms or its probability of success<\/em>,” although the operator has promised to keep markets informed if a “satisfactory agreement<\/em>” can be done.<\/p>\n

In the past we’ve seen similar talks between Vodafone<\/a> and Virgin Media<\/a>’s parent (here<\/a> and here<\/a>), but nothing ever came of those. On the other hand a deal with the behemoth that is Vodafone<\/a> would be a more complicated proposition, while a deal for O2<\/a> might be smoother.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless Telefonica have also been linked with similar discussions in the past, which never amounted to anything, but perhaps this time will be different.<\/p>\n

TELEF\u00d3NICA, S.A. (\u201cTelef\u00f3nica\u201d) in compliance with the Securities Market legislation, hereby communicates the following:<\/p>\n

INSIDE INFORMATION<\/strong><\/p>\n

In relation to the news published in some media regarding the discussions with Liberty Global on a potential integration of their respective telecommunications businesses in the United Kingdom, Telef\u00f3nica informs that the process initiated by both parties is in a negotiation phase, not being able to guarantee, to this date, neither the precise terms nor the probability of its success.<\/p>\n

In the event of a satisfactory agreement on this potential transaction, Telef\u00f3nica will communicate such information to the markets.<\/p>\n

Madrid, 4 May 2020.<\/p>\n

SPANISH NATIONAL SECURITIES MARKET COMMISSION<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As we’ve said before, a deal between Virgin Media<\/a>’s fixed line broadband network and a dedicated mobile operator, such as O2<\/a>, makes a lot of sense on the convergence front. O2 would gain plenty of access to feed their existing 4G<\/a> and future 5G<\/a> mobile network with data capacity from fixed lines, while VM could take on BT<\/a> (EE<\/a>) and perhaps develop a seamless all-IP network of its own (between fixed and mobile) with competitive bundles.<\/p>\n

The exact structure of any deal is open the speculation, although assuming the agreement doesn’t eventually coalesce around a single brand (e.g. BT<\/a> and EE<\/a> retained their brands) then we could eventually see O2 re-entering the UK fixed broadband market (after selling their old fixed base to Sky some years ago) via Virgin Media’s platform (or Liberty Networks<\/strong> if they proceed with a proposal to split off their fibre into a separate wholesale company).<\/p>\n

However, one of several potential problems here could be the fact that Virgin Media has already signed a 5-year contract with Vodafone<\/a>, which will see the latter taking over their Mobile Virtual Network Operator<\/strong> (MVNO) platform from EE<\/a> (BT<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Under that deal Virgin Mobile will start to transition on to Vodafone’s network from the end of 2021 (here<\/a>), but it’s not too late to change that (provided a merger agreement can be reached soon), although there may be a cost to exiting the contract.<\/p>\n

The other issue is that such a deal may result in O2 losing some of their MVNO customers, such as Sky Broadband<\/a> (Sky Mobile<\/a>), which may seek to work with Three UK<\/a> or Vodafone instead. But that might become less contentious if Sky UK also reaches a long rumoured agreement to take a wholesale broadband solution from Virgin Media (most likely as part of a Liberty Networks split).<\/p>\n

Telefonica has of course been looking to float or sell O2 UK in order to reduce their debt, although in the past year they appeared to have given up on that course and were instead focusing upon a plan to improve their UK network. In any case we can’t see any major regulatory obstacles to a deal with the cable giant, unlike O2 and Three UK<\/a>’s failed attempt to merge a few years ago (blocked by the EU and Ofcom<\/a> over competition concerns).<\/p>\n

One other thing worth mentioning here is Ofcom<\/a>’s forthcoming auction of 5G<\/a> spectrum, which could have a significant impact on O2’s value. In the past Telefonica has suggested that any Initial Public Offering (IPO) might have to wait until that completes, although O2 itself has just threatened a legal challenge that may complicate matters (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Any merger would naturally leave Vodafone and Three UK<\/a> as the only two mobile operators without their own fixed line base, although Vodafone has forged close wholesale ties with both Openreach<\/a> (BT) and Cityfibre<\/a> for fibre products. Some have however speculated that the talks with O2 may just be a ploy by Liberty Global to sniff out a better deal with Vodafone, but a deal could work with either operator.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 1:38pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some readers have asked if we can paste in the full market statement from Telefonica, which I’ve done above. We also contacted Virgin Media about this and were given a “no comment<\/em>” response, which is interesting because we’d normally expect both sides to make such a confirmation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The parent of mobile operator O2 UK, Telefonica, has this morning confirmed last week’s speculation – via a brief filing to Spain’s market regulator – that they’ve officially opened merger talks with the parent (Liberty Global) of UK cable broadband ISP and TV operator Virgin Media. But no deal has been agreed and the talks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[472,32,475],"class_list":["post-22150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk_isp_news","tag-business","tag-o2","tag-virgin-media"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"yoast_head":"\nO2 Officially Confirms Merger Talks with UK ISP Virgin Media - ISPreview UK<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The parent of mobile operator O2 UK, Telefonica, has this morning confirmed last week's speculation - via a brief filing to Spain's market regulator -\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2020\/05\/o2-officially-confirms-merger-talks-with-uk-isp-virgin-media.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"O2 Officially Confirms Merger Talks with UK ISP Virgin Media - 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