Liberty Global to Sell Swedish Cable Operation
Denver, Colorado – April 5, 2006: Liberty Global, Inc. (“Liberty Global”) (Nasdaq: LBTYA, LBTYB, LBTYK) announced today that it has reached an agreement to sell 100% of its Swedish cable business, UPC Sverige AB (“UPC Sweden”) to a consortium comprising The Carlyle Group (“Carlyle”) and Providence Equity Partners (“Providence”).
Liberty Global will sell UPC Sweden for a total enterprise value of approximately SEK3,269 million (€349 million or US$427 million) including approximately SEK255 million (€27 million or US$34 million) of capital lease obligations. The sale price represents a multiple of 9.3 times UPC Sweden’s 2005 operating cash flow, as customarily defined by Liberty Global, except that corporate expense allocations have been excluded. Closing of the transaction is subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, principally including the receipt of regulatory approval. The transaction is expected to close during the second half of 2006. Mike Fries, President and Chief Executive Officer of Liberty Global said: “Upon completion of this transaction, together with the sale of UPC Norway and the pending sale of UPC France, we will have generated approximately $2.5 billion in gross proceeds to the Company before required debt repayments of approximately $1 billion. As a result, we have made substantial progress in the rebalancing of our European operations over the last six months, improving our focus on those areas where we have significant in-country scale and where we see above average opportunities for growth." Deutsche Bank acted as financial advisor to Liberty Global in this transaction.