Vodafone announced on Monday it has ended talks with Liberty Global over a possible asset swap.
Rumours of a full merger between the companies had been regularly doing the rounds by the time Vodafone confirmed in June that the pair were holding talks about exchanging certain assets.
But the companies were never going to find it easy to reach a deal.
"Vodaf one today announces that discussions with Liberty Global have terminated," the U.K.-based telco giant said in a statement on Monday.
It did not provide reasons for the failure of the talks. However, the disclosure follows a Bloomberg report earlier in September in which Liberty chairman John Malone admitted that the two companies were struggling to come up with a deal structure that they could pitch to shareholders.
The combination of Liberty Global’s Virgin Media unit with Vodafone UK would have created a strong quad-play provider better-positioned to compete with a merged BT/EE.
Meanwhile, Malone had previously espoused the benefits of synergies in Germany and the Netherlands.
It seems though that the companies have failed to find a middle ground.
It is worth considering that mergers between Vodafone and Liberty Global in certain European markets would have faced scrutiny from the European Commission. Establishing an asset swap that would have remained mutually-beneficial in spite of potential remedies from Brussels may have proved too complex an undertaking.
