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LONDON — Shareholders of Virgin Media on Tuesday approved the acquisition of the U.K. cable giant by John Malone‘s Liberty Global, which is valued at $23.3 billion.
The special shareholder meeting in New York followed deal approval by Liberty Global shareholders on Monday. The two approvals set the stage for the deal to close by the end of the week.
“The transactions contemplated by the merger agreement are expected to be completed on or about June 7,” Virgin Media said.
Virgin Media’s common stock will continue to trade on Nasdaq Global Select Market until the close of business on Friday. The companies previously also said that the stock listing of Virgin Media on the London Stock Exchange will be canceled.
“This is one more brick in the wall of scale in Europe, which will ultimately pay real dividends,” said Malone during a question-and-answer session at Monday’s meeting, calling scale “critical.” Liberty Global and Virgin Media on a combined basis currently have more TV subscribers than U.S. cable giant Comcast.
Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com
Twitter: @georgszalai
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