S&P puts Liberty Global on positive watch

Standard & Poor's said it placed the B+ long-term corporate credit rating on Liberty Global Inc. and all ratings on its indirect subsidiaries, Liberty Global Europe Inc., UnitedGlobalCom Inc., UPC Holding BV and UPC Broadband Holding BV on CreditWatch with positive implications.

The CreditWatch placement follows news that Liberty Global has made a $23 billion cash and share takeover offer for Virgin Media Inc.

The acquisition of Virgin Media would further strengthen Liberty Global's superior asset-portfolio diversity and growth prospects compared with peers, S&P said, and could lead to a revision of its business risk profile assessment to strong from satisfactory.

The agency also said it estimates that the transaction would not significantly change Liberty Global's leverage, but could strengthen its consolidated cash flow generation.

The acquisition would not result in any meaningful leverage increase for Liberty Global, S&P said, and would still likely be consistent with the assessment of the group's financial risk profile as highly leveraged.

The CreditWatch will be resolved on completion of the transaction, which is expected before the end of the first half of 2013, the agency said.

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