£10 Billion Takeover of ntl:Telewest?

[Neil]

Interesting....

Originally Posted by TimesOnline

PRIVATE equity firms are preparing a fresh £10 billion bid for NTL as disgruntled shareholders today lodge a formal complaint against the cable group’s rejection last year of a £9 billion offer.
Four private equity groups are understood to be looking afresh at NTL, whose shares have fallen 20 per cent over the past four months as it struggles to demonstrate the benefits of its recent £3.4 billion takeover of Telewest.

The bid approach, which is understood to be dependent on NTL’s share price falling below its current level of $24.42, would represent one of the largest private equity buyouts.

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[King Of Fools]

I guess a lot will rest on whether Richard Branson decides to sell his large stake of NTL shares.

[Rob]

I dont understand why anyone would want to buy a company that isnt making money

[punky]

Originally Posted by Rob C

I dont understand why anyone would want to buy a company that isnt making money

That's exactly what these private equity companies do. They either buy a failing company cheap, and put the expertise and money in to turn it around and sell it at a profit, or they break the company apart and sell it off, as sometimes the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

[Aragorn]

Originally Posted by Rob C

I dont understand why anyone would want to buy a company that isnt making money

Probably because it has strong assets and they think they can make money.

[orangebird]

It's making operational profit at least. Speculate to accumulate and all that...

[Neil]

Originally Posted by Aragorn

Probably because it has strong assets and they think they can make money.

Absolutely.

Hopefully, they will rip it apart piece by piece, get rid of all the processes that let the wage paying customers down (along with the staff & management that do the same) and make it in one/several properly run companies.

Originally Posted by Neil

Absolutely.

Hopefully, they will rip it apart piece by piece, get rid of all the processes that let the wage paying customers down (along with the staff & management that do the same) and make it in one/several properly run companies.

It could be easily stripped down to at least 3 companies.

Consumer and Business

Networks and Carriers

Mobile.

[Bob]

According to more comments in the actual paper, the equity firms are more interested in its very valuable infrastructure and not its content

[Zee]

Well this sucks, i wonder what will happen to us customers if this happens and what will happen to their "upgrade" plans?

[James Henry]

£9 billion is a very good price for the company from last year, why they didn't go with that is a mystery to me it would represent pretty good value to the shareholders and I'm not at all surprised they weren't happy about it being rejected.

Don't think it'd be that hard to get ntl operating better... getting rid of the BS red tape and procedural nonsense that's solely there because of empire builders who want to protect their non-existent jobs would be a good start.

Following that get rid of the BS politics in between departments and get managers' heads around the fact they do infact work for the same company and holding up projects to improve the appearance of their own department at anothers' expense would be another bonus.

Think I heard from someone that ntl:Telewest now follow the ntl methods of change controls and operations, with the result that it now takes over 4 times as long for the same things to get done as they did with Telewest's systems.

All about accountability, which doesn't actually exist in the company as managers teflon it off to others and it gets juggled around when things go wrong and wrapped up in politics.

ntl is a company that seems to think it's a BT, so imo completely new ownership by a private equity group that would take ntl:Telewest apart and build it back up properly as an efficient business is all good. Had the chance to do it during the merger but by all accounts the best parts of Telewest's operations are being thrown away

Might get rid of the ridiculous attitude of saving a few £ here and there on things and ending up annoying customers and staff while letting gross inefficiency from the top down 'urinate' away millions.

---------- Post added at 13:46 ---------- Previous post was at 13:43 ----------

Originally Posted by Jack001

Well this sucks, i wonder what will happen to us customers if this happens and what will happen to their "upgrade" plans?

The private firm would likely follow the upgrade plans as they are needed to compete.

[georgepomone]

Hi All,
thanks Neil for posting that as we wouldn't have heard about this otherwise. I personally don't think Richard Bransons stake in the company would make any difference, he would still be there and maybe take an even bigger stake with different partners.
I still wonder what the attraction is because there is still the question of that big debt burden. What is it now? 5 Billion+,an awfull lot of money.I get the feeling that's why ntl keep going because nobody wants the debt burden.If there are offers forthcoming then they must have found a way round that.
At least ntl have kept the cable industry going.Good or Bad thing I don't know. My feelings for what it's worth are that if the industry becomes fragmented (split up). That could be the beginning of the end for cable.The point is what could be done now to save any money on running costs.Any savings to be done have been done by ntl and customers don't like it one bit.Far from upgrading the system it could gradually get even worse.
These Private Equity people are experts at asset stripping.Sell the good bits off at a big profit. Then land values etc. covers getting rid of the rest.
Who knows what will happen now.
George.

[punky]

Originally Posted by Bob

According to more comments in the actual paper, the equity firms are more interested in its very valuable infrastructure and not its content

True... For a cable companny to replicate ntl:telewest's network, would cost them billions, plus a long time to accomplish... Providing the get permission from all the councils to dig all the roads up again in the first place.

[Horizon]

....or "they" could use the electricity pylons to string up fibre cable all over the country to create a national network. Or even use the power lines themselves, if the technology has been refined. Then use the telegraph poles to string up the cable for the local networks, thus preventing digging up roads and the expense that entails. Assuming both the electricity companies and BT cooperate or forced to cooperate by the regulators.

Plus, nationwide Wi-Max networks aren't too far off.

So there are ways and means, if someone has the money. Of course BT has the money and a national network, but would they prepared to follow some of their U.S. counterparts and start laying or "stringing up" fibre all over the place? Depends, I think, how competitive cable gets.

As for the cable takeover itself, it will happen at some point as there is huge potential for cable. Look at the revenues cable bring up...It would be so much better, of course, if that billions worth of debt weren't there. Personally, and as been muted in the industry for donkey's years, I reckon John Malone (U.S. Cable King) will get his hands on uk cable by one method or another.

[Stu038]

Originally Posted by Pierre

It could be easily stripped down to at least 3 companies.

Consumer and Business

Networks and Carriers

Mobile.

Many are convinced already that networks in its entirety will be sold off in the not too distant future allowing ntl to become a reseller i.e. the Virgin mobile model.

As for general asset stripping there's not that much you can strip out and sell on for any decent money, the only assets are the network in its entirety and the customers.