Daily Archives: October 25, 2013

Liberty's closeness to bondholders could thwart Ziggo/UPC merger

Posted: October 25, 2013 at 12:44 pm

* Ziggo/UPC merger could strain high yield indices

* LGI at pains to let investors class exposures separately

* Ziggo bond refinancing could create poison pill

By Robert Smith

LONDON, Oct 25 (IFR) - Liberty Global (LGI) has fired the opening shot in its takeover battle for Dutch cable business Ziggo, but the close relationship the U.S. cable giant has forged with bondholders could complicate any attempt to merge the target firm with its UPC operation.

"Liberty has one of the best relationships with bond investors in the European high yield market," said one investor, explaining that it has kept investors happy by allowing them to class its myriad cable businesses as separate exposures.

LGI businesses such as Unitymedia, Virgin Media and UPC all have separate credit pools, and so carry separate bond tickers. This benefits portfolio managers as they break down exposures on a ticker basis, allowing them to list the businesses separately.

Several European cable businesses switched to a single "LBTYA" ticker at one point, according to three market sources, but the company reverted back to separate tickers after complaints from bondholders.

Maintaining these separate tickers could pose a problem for LGI's next target acquisition, however.

Ziggo confirmed last week that it had rejected an initial offer from John Malone's LGI, which already holds a 28.5% stake in the company. This was in response to a report in German weekly Manager Magazin that LGI intends to merge Ziggo with its UPC operations in the Netherlands and Belgian firm Telenet.

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Liberty's closeness to bondholders could thwart Ziggo/UPC merger

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Pennsylvania Vampires . The Little Horn of the Bible. Illuminati Freemason Symbolism. – Video

Posted: at 12:43 pm


Pennsylvania Vampires . The Little Horn of the Bible. Illuminati Freemason Symbolism.
An investigative Look into Pennsylvania ,San Diego and Washington DC. Showing Vampire Evidence for the End time Beast that rises out of the sea. Jesus Christ Is LORD and Savior the...

By: TheGroxt1

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Pennsylvania Vampires . The Little Horn of the Bible. Illuminati Freemason Symbolism. - Video

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Free Speech Week — Thursday

Posted: at 12:41 pm

This is the fourth day of Free Speech Week, during which we will be celebrating freedom of speech by posting highlights from Catos recent work to support freedom of speech in its various forms, whether through legal advocacy, media appearances, or other public outreach.

Today we will take a look at the threat to free speech posed by the IRSs power over non-profit groups. As many will remember, Tea Party and small government advocacy groups were specifically targeted for harassment, audits, and delays when seeking IRS approval to operate as 501(c)(4) non-profit groups. This was one the bigger scandals of the several to hit the Obama administration in the last year or two, and for good reason. The use of executive agencies to harass and silence political enemies presents a threat to the freedom of political speech and is a smack in the face of the concept of representative government.

This kind of abuse of the IRSs power isnt really anything new, however, as the following Cato Institute video explains:

For more on the IRS scandal, check out the briefing below, featuring Catos Trevor Burrus and John Samples:

For more information on Free Speech Week and to learn how you can help celebrate free speech, check out http://www.FreeSpeechWeek.org.

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Free Speech Week — Thursday

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