Liberty Global Plc’ share price up, remains open for acquisitions despite high net debt levels

Liberty Global Plc, has become one of the most eager European companies that look forward for more acquisitions, by striking takeover deals for about $40 billion since February last year, according to data from Dealogic.

Some people familiar with the matter, said that the company is looking forward for making more acquisitions in the video content industry. In July, Liberty Global Plc has purchased a 6.4% minority stake in ITV that was estimated at 481 million pounds, which is the reason why some analysts consider that it may now seek to take over the entire company. In addition, Liberty Global is in negotiations to acquire a 49% stake in Formula One together with its sister company Discovery Communications Inc.

The net debt of the company was $41.4 billion at the end of June this year, but the poor financial firepower of Liberty does not seem to be an obstacle when it comes to its offers for ITV and Formula One, which are still not certain.

The Chairman of the company – Mr. Malone said in a recent interview, which was cited by the Financial Times: “Scale economics are compelling in the media space where you have high fixed and very low marginal costs.” Libertys Chief Executive Officer Mr. Fries added: “[In] a globalising digital world you need to have great scale to compete with Google [or] Netflix.”

Last week Liberty Global Plc announced its results over the second quarter of the fiscal year, saying that its revenue over the period rose by 51% from $445.1 million to $669.5 million due to new subscribers. According to the companys statement, Libertys sales over the second three months of the year increased from $3.06 million to $4.6 billion.

However, the net loss of the company increased from $11.6 million over the same period a year ago to $249.9 million over the three months ended June 30th.

As reported by Bloomberg, the Chief Executive Officer of the company Mr. Mike Fries said in its statement: “We remain confident that we’ll achieve or exceed all our public guidance targets for the full year.”

Liberty Global Plc was 0.41% up to trade at $41.73 per share by 15:08 BST (14:08 GMT), marking a one-year change of +3.22%. According to the information published on CNN Money, the 15 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Liberty Global Plc have a median target of $52.00, with a high estimate of $62.00 and a low estimate of $38.00. The median estimate represents a +25.12% increase from the last price of $41.56.