Malone’s Liberty Global Returns to Germany With Fiber Venture

(Bloomberg) -- Liberty Global Plc exited Germany when it sold cable assets to Vodafone Group Plc in an 18.4 billion-euro ($21.6 billion) deal just two years ago. Now it’s already back in Europe’s biggest economy with a new broadband company. 

The London-based group, steered by billionaire “Cable Cowboy” John Malone, has launched Liberty Networks Germany, a joint venture with InfraVia Capital Partners, with a view to building fiber internet to under-served parts of the country. 

The company didn’t say how much money it’s putting into the partnership, which threatens to add another deep-pocketed player to Germany’s already fiercely competitive internet market. 

The companies are “excited by the attractive returns offered by greenfield fiber network deployment in a country where millions of homes don’t yet have access to fast and reliable broadband,” Liberty’s director of connectivity investments, Robert Dunn, said in a statement Thursday. 

Liberty is exploring a similar joint funding model to extend its U.K. network footprint to better compete with former monopoly BT Group Plc. 

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