Mike Fries may be totting up swingeing job cuts, a £22bn debt pile and the loss of hundreds of thousands of customers, but he appears to be putting a brave face on the situation. “In our minds, anyway, this is not a crisis,” the boss of the co-owner of Virgin Media O2 said this week.
The UK telecoms company, which offers broadband, TV, landline and mobile services, had just announced £800m in cost savings, including potentially cutting up to a quarter of staff. Fries, the chief executive of Liberty Global, faced searching questions on its future and a potential refinancing of its huge debt pile next year. “We made it clear, we have nothing to add to where we sit today,” he said.
However, for the company’s 16,000 UK staff, the job cuts, and a raft of other measures including abandoning investing in upgrading its cable network to full fibre, are symptomatic of a business if not in crisis, then under extreme pressure. And it has left industry watchers wondering: what has gone wrong at Virgin Media O2? READ MORE...
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