Liberty Global at Morgan Stanley Conference: Strategic Insights and Market Challenges

On Wednesday, 12 November 2025, Liberty Global (NASDAQ:LBTYA) participated in the Morgan Stanley 25th European Technology, Media & Telecom Conference. CEO Mike Fries discussed the company's strategic pillars and market position, highlighting both opportunities and challenges. While Fries expressed optimism about Liberty Global's undervalued stock and potential for value creation, he also acknowledged competitive pressures and the need for regulatory support in Europe.

Key Takeaways

• Liberty Global's CEO emphasized the undervaluation of the company's stock and potential for value creation.
• Strategic focus on Liberty Telecom, Liberty Growth, and Liberty Services & Corporate.
• Successful spin-off of the Swiss operation, Sunrise, and strategic initiatives in the Benelux region.
• Optimism about European market prospects due to nearing completion of 5G and fiber upgrades.
• Ongoing commitment to share buybacks, aiming for 5% annually.

Financial Results

• Revenue: $22 billion from telecom assets.
• Corporate spend reduction: Decreased from $200 million to $150 million, with a target of $100 million next year.
• Sunrise spin-off: Traded at approximately 8 times EBITDA with an 8% dividend yield.
• Free cash flow: Focus on driving free cash flow in Europe post-5G and fixed network upgrades.

Operational Updates

• Sunrise Spin-off: Completed tax-free spin-off in November 2024, reducing leverage from 6x to 4.5x.
• Belgium: Fixed network carved out, with a $4.35 billion commitment to fund fiber build and deleverage Telenet.
• Netherlands: Turnaround efforts include brand investment and launching 2Gig broadband.
• UK: Facing competitive challenges from MVNOs and AltNets, with strategies to enhance retention and broadband offerings.
• Liberty Growth: Assets valued at approximately $3.5 billion, with significant investments in data centers.

Future Outlook

• Belgium: Anticipates a more rational market due to strategic fiber build agreements.
• Netherlands: Patience in market strategy, leveraging a rational market structure.
• UK: Expects AltNet consolidation due to competitive pressures.
• Liberty Growth: Plans to monetize digital infrastructure assets and focus on telecom opportunities.
• Corporate Spend: Further reductions by reallocating costs to growth assets.

Q&A Highlights

• John Malone's Role: Fries assured Malone's continued advisory role despite reduced board involvement.
• Europe vs. US: Europe seen as having a favorable CapEx environment and regulatory support.
• Listing Status: Being a listed stock is not deemed essential for achieving corporate goals.

For more detailed insights, refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Morgan Stanley 25th European Technology, Media & Telecom Conference:

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Good morning, everyone. Let's begin the next session. My name is Terrence Su. I'm an equity analyst at Morgan Stanley, and I'm very pleased to be on the stage with Liberty Global and the company's CEO and co-founder, Mike Fries. Mike, welcome. Really good to see you out in Barcelona, and thank you for supporting this conference year after year. Let's get right to it. Lots has changed at Liberty Global over the past years. You've now established the three core platforms in Liberty Telecom, Liberty Growth, and Liberty Services and Corporate. Please, can you walk us through the strategic goals in each of these core pillars and the progress you've achieved over the year?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Sure. Great to be here, as usual. We are like all the telco folks you'll listen to this week in that we maintain very strenuously that we're undervalued on pretty much any metric, whether it's net asset value, discounted cash flows, some of the parts. We're unlike the other telcos, though, in that I think we have really three unique pillars to create value. We have, of course, the telecom assets, which you know and love, and so do we. We've been doing this for three decades, buying and building telcos, broadband, mobile throughout Europe. I think at one point we were in 20 different countries across Europe, typically exiting at really good values and prices and remaining today in a pretty sizable platform, $22 billion of revenue, four core markets. And these are great assets.

I mean, these are businesses that we'll talk about, I'm sure, have a lot of opportunity, probably getting zero value in our stock today for those assets, given that we're levered 5.5 times and people are putting pretty low multiples these days on those cash flows for whatever reason. We can argue that. We have a Liberty Growth platform, which is relatively unique. It's probably $8-$9 a share. We're an $11 stock, so $8-$9 a share just in our media sports infrastructure assets, which we can talk about. We have embedded in our business, like a lot of telcos, we're carving out some service platforms. We have one in particular called Blue, which we can discuss. These tech and financial services platforms generate over $600 million a year of revenue and positive OFCF.

That, in our view, is another pillar of opportunity and growth. Lastly, we are heavily focused on our corporate spend. There is a reason for that. Again, $10, $11 stock. A year ago, not even a year ago, six months ago, the average analyst put a negative $10 a share, negative $10 a share on our corporate. Negative $10 on a $10 stock. We got the message. We started the year with guidance of $200 million. We lowered it in Q2 to $175 million. We lowered it in Q3 to $150 million. We told you next year it will be $100 million. At a minimum, our stock should be up $5. If you are being honest and straight with your math, it should be up $5 just on that announcement in our Q3 call alone. We will talk about how we have done it and what that means.

In each of those three pillars, we know there are opportunities to unlock value, and we are focused on them in each instance, and we can talk about them through the course of this conversation, I suppose.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Yeah, thanks very much, Mike. That's very interesting and lots of topics to follow up on. If I can begin with a discussion around the opportunity to separate some of your operating businesses. You've said that's important to help unlock the conglomerate discount in your stock. Please, can you update us on how you managed to create value at Sunrise, some of the progress that you've initiated this year as well, and what could you see coming up in the future?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Sure, sure. For those, I'm sure most people followed it. Our Swiss operation spun out in November of last year. We announced it in February 2024. We spun it out tax-free in November. Trading today at about 8 times EBITDA, 8% dividend yield. Interestingly, when we spun it out, it was roughly 20% of our proportionate telecom EBITDA, 20%. The market cap is bigger than our market cap today. That is a pretty good value unlock, but it says more about what remains in the business, in my opinion, than anything else. What are the things that made that work? Four things, really. Number one, it is a great market, highly rational market in Switzerland. Number two, we delevered the business from 6 times to 4.5 times. JP Morgan was adamant, UBS was adamant, nobody is interested in 4.5 times levered companies.

It turns out they are. Stock is trading brilliantly on the Swiss exchange. Third, we had a very clear network strategy, a hybrid network strategy, where half the market was covered with 2Gig broadband on HFC. The 100% of the market was covered on a fiber hold-by deal with Swisscom. We had an excellent network strategy, 5G behind us, CapEx at 15% of revs. Lastly, we were generating great free cash. That free cash, we're dividending 70% of it out. We just raised the dividend for this year. A progressive dividend strategy, by the way, the dividend is tax-free if you're a Swiss institution. It is not an 8% dividend yield. It is a 12% or 13% dividend yield because the dividend itself, because it is the return of capital in Switzerland, is tax-free.

That transaction obviously made it clear to us that there's real value in these businesses under the right circumstances. We will look to rinse and repeat where we can in some markets. We can talk about those. Not every market's going to fit that mold, but much of what we operate today does fit that mold.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay. You also mentioned some ECM opportunities in the Benelux. I wonder if we can explore that in a bit more detail. Do you see any potential for any cross-border synergies?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Let's start with Belgium. I mean, let's look at Belgium and line it up to Switzerland. For starters, Belgium is a pretty rational market, three operators today. There's a fourth entrant, Digi, but struggling. We have a market in Belgium with three core operators. We have really good share, really good brands, strong, almost incumbency-type position in that market. Secondly, we've already fixed the network story in Belgium. We have carved out our fixed network. We are building fiber off-balance sheet, fully financed. That netco is a source of deleveraging. We just announced $4.35 billion underwritten commitment that will fund the fiber build in Belgium, as well as delever the netco, the servco, pardon me, Telenet itself. Because when you divide these things, the netco has different margins, different characteristics. More leverage on the netco, less leverage on the servco.

The third thing we're doing is going to sell down a stake of that netco called Wire, which will take Telenet leverage probably down to 4.5. You have a rational market. We have a rational fiber market. We have announced this deal with Proximus, where each of us will basically agree not to overbuild each other. We will have 100% whole-buy, wholesale market share in some portions of the country. They will have it elsewhere. Highly rational fixed network market, fully financed off-balance sheet, a source of capital to delever the servco feels to us like that asset. By the way, an inflection point is coming on free cash flow as the mobile Capex has declined. All the ducks are lining up, so to speak, on that asset.

In terms of the Dutch asset, listen, we have a partner there going on, I think, nine years. I was thinking about that this morning, nine years. That is 63 years in dog years. That is a long time. We are good partners, and the business is doing well. We will talk about it, I guess. Whether or not we bring that together, merge things together, hard to say. We can do whatever we want with our 50% for the most part. If we said, "Hey, we are going to spin off Telenet," we think it is right. It was a public company. KPN trades at nine times in a 5% dividend yield. It is a good comp. We could put our portion of VodafoneZiggo into that trade if we tracked it. Spinning might require some approvals. Nonetheless, there is lots of optionality.

The nice thing about our portfolio is we have dozens of tools in the toolbox because of how we're structured, because of our tax position. We can spin, track, list really efficiently across the board in multiple combinations. Stay tuned. I think I said on the call, decisions are pending there. I think that's right. We'll make some decisions relatively quickly.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Great. That's very clear and lots to look forward to. Let's stay on Liberty Global and talk about 2025 business performance so far and some of the growth initiatives that you've implemented. What are you pleased about and what work still needs to be done?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Look, we're in a competitive market across the board. What's impacting that competitive position? Listen, we've got MVNOs that are getting quite aggressive almost everywhere. Flanker brands, budget brands, no matter where we operate in any operator up here, if they're not telling you this, they're not telling you the truth. Wherever we operate, MVNOs are getting more aggressive. In some cases, like the U.K., we have AltNets that are also getting quite aggressive with pricing. You take the U.K. as an example, which is a bit of an outlier for us. I'd say it's highly competitive in the U.K. today. You've got MVNOs. Now, we have a Flanker brand too, so we're getting our fair share with Giffgaff. Nonetheless, pricing on mobile, even though our RPU is up, pricing on mobile is tough.

Of course, broadband net adds are also tough because AltNets are quite aggressive. What are we doing about that in the U.K.? We have launched Netflix across all of our broadband and entertainment bundles for the most part. We are doing a much better job proactively recontracting people, dealing with this one-touch switch challenge. We are doubling speeds where we can. I think we are doing a great job on retention. There are a lot of tools that we are using in that marketplace to grow. We are doing reasonably well on postpaid. I think we are flat in the third quarter if you exclude B2B on postpaid. We lost broadband subs in the third quarter, now fewer than we did in Q1 and Q2. Trajectory is good, but it is a competitive marketplace. All the markets, I think, can be characterized similarly. We can all cut costs. We are doing that really well.

We can reduce CapEx. We're all doing that really well. The top line is where you need to put your attention. What can we do? What can each of us do? What can the industry do to drive top-line growth in a competitive environment?

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay. That is kind of a segue to looking at the regulatory and the antitrust environment. Investors have hoped for a more favorable regulatory environment throughout the year. Can you highlight some of the changes that you have seen and what you think still needs to be done?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: I think I've been up here many, many years. I would say this feels like a good moment. We're not there yet, but the Draghi Report combined with, we'll say what's happening in the U.K. around merger control, I think there's a nice tailwind here on regulatory, but it's not done. What do I mean? The EU's done nothing really about the Draghi Report. You saw the letter that all the mobile operators sent out. We signed that letter. We've really done very little, to be honest, around spectrum, merger controls, prioritizing growth. These are things that they haven't really done anything tangible. The Digital Networks Act hasn't come out. It's been delayed. I think we have to raise the temperature in Brussels. We are critical infrastructure. You've had your foot on our neck for 20 years.

AI infrastructure is really cool too, but none of it works unless it all works. I think that message is getting through. I hope it's getting through. Some markets like the U.K., where they've made significant changes at the CMA, and that's positive. I think in principle, this consolidation message, and I know my peers talk about it all the time as well, this in-market consolidation message is starting to resonate. I'm hopeful that we'll see more of that.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay. In the U.K. specifically, there is a lot of noise around the upcoming budget, future tax changes. From a Liberty Global perspective, what are you pushing towards in the U.K.?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: No fewer taxes. That's pretty straightforward. Look, if you want to tax the big tech guys on their AI infrastructure, have at it. But stay away from the small tech guys. We're small tech. We are trying to build fiber, build 5G, give the market a shot. The idea that they would tax us in that process, anybody in that process, AltNets, incumbents, competitors, is crazy. Let's hope that's not in the budget. Let's hope that we're already paying taxes that I think are excessive. Let's hope that's not the case.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay. Let's drill in a bit more detail into some of the countries. Let's touch on the Netherlands' new management team at the start of the year. You've guided to mid to high single-digit decline in EBITDA for 2025. Now, how do you envisage the turnaround taking place?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: It is already happening. I mean, we talk about it on our quarterly calls. You can see it in the numbers. Q3 was better than Q2. October was better than September. This week was better than last week. The trend has kind of been reversed. Stephen's done a great job in getting the business turned around. That is number one. How has he done that? It is straightforward stuff. Invest in the brands, number one. Vodafone is a good brand in that market. Invest in it. We have done that. Get the front book back to where it needs to be. That has happened pretty aggressively. We have launched 2Gig pretty much everywhere in that market, committed to DOCSIS 4 in that market. I think we have got the tools and we have got the methods in place to drive continued improved performance there.

I'm not going to give you guidance on what that's going to look like, except that we're patient. Why are we patient? Because it's also a three-player market. That's highly rational. Talking about KPN, trades at 9 times EBITDA. Great comp there. We are going to generate free cash. We do generate free cash, and we will continue to generate good free cash in this market. We are patient in the Dutch market. I think Stephen's doing a great job. I think the turnaround is working. He's created a winning spirit, sort of an edge that the company needed. We've got content differentiation. We've got a lot of real advantages to push in the Dutch market, and we're starting to do that, and the numbers are showing that.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Yeah. And then on the U.K., you mentioned it's highly competitive. Do you think this level of competitive intensity can be sustained in the medium term?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: It all depends. I mean, Simon's here from CityFibre. He'll disagree with me, but most, or maybe not, most AltNets are going to struggle in this market and need to be either consolidated or shut down. Not all of them, but certainly most. There is a lot of noise in the fixed marketplace today. Whether that's sustainable, I think, is a big question mark. We've got four big brands in that market, three networks, plus AltNets, plus four real brands, right? Us, Vodafone 3, BT, and Sky. Sky is sizable. They do not own network, but they've got a lot of customers. There are four brands kind of punching it out. Then MVNOs and AltNets on either side grabbing share. It is a highly competitive market. As I said, I think it is an outlier for us in terms of the level and intensity of competition.

As I mentioned, we've got the right things, and Lutz and the team are doing the right things. There are some green shoots in terms of quarter by quarter and where we see the business going long term. It's growing. EBITDA is growing. There's no question about that. We think we can modulate CapEx. We've got a fiber strategy. It's largely off-balance sheet, but we have a fiber strategy, both on-balance sheet and off-balance sheet. That's reasonable. We're upgrading fiber at GBP 100 a home. That's like Latin American numbers. We operate in Latin America. I know those numbers. We're upgrading at very low prices, very low costs. We reach almost 6-7 million fiber homes today out of our footprint are already fiber. We're on that journey, and I think we're on it cost-effectively. That's the key, so.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: In this highly competitive market, how do you balance price versus volume?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: It's value. It's value. I mean, look at our RPU in Mobile is up. RPU in Fixed is stable. We are prioritizing value over volume. That should be clear. It's the right thing to do. We have multiple brands. We have Giffgaff. We have Virgin Media. We have O2. We have multiple brands. We have a multi-brand strategy like everybody in the telco business today. We are attacking every segment, but I think we are trying to drive value.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay. And then switching back to Belgium. You mentioned some of the strengths of Telenet compared to the competition. How do you see the competitive landscape evolving over time? I do not think Digi have had that big an impact so far this year, but they could be a bit stronger next year. How's it looking like for you?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Yeah. I mean, Telenet has a lot of advantages in the mobile space. We've got best 5G network. We've got a kind of real greenfield opportunity in the south. I think, and three quarters of improved performance. Telenet's on a good run. Digi has struggled, but we don't count these guys out ever, ever. Those who operate in Spain can speak to that. You can't count these guys out, and we don't. They've had a tough time of it, and this is not Spain or Portugal. This is a different market, Belgium, for all kinds of reasons. I think one thing for sure that we've done, which has been a real positive, is at least we've rationalized the infrastructure side of the market. It'd be one thing to have three competitors, maybe a fourth, and also massive disruption and chaos in infrastructure.

What we've agreed with Proximus, which is now being market tested, is essentially a rational approach to fiber build. We build here. You use our network. Everybody uses our network. You build there. We'll use your network. Everybody uses your network. A very rational approach to spending because it's an expensive build in Belgium. That, I think, will lead to a more rational market long term.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay. Very clear. I'm just going to pause for a short moment to see if there's any questions from the audience on Liberty Global before I switch to the other core pillars. Anyone got a question about the U.K., Holland, Belgium, or Ireland? Okay. Let's turn to Liberty Growth.

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Sure.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Actually, let's just begin with an overview of this division.

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Sure.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Familiarize investors.

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: It is a, okay, I'm sure most of you have some basic appreciation for it. It is about $3.5 billion of assets, principally in media, in digital infrastructure and tech. This is stuff we've been doing for quite a while and building over time. That is $8-$9 a share, something like that, that sits in this business. We can talk about each one of those if you want, but it is, we are looking for scale-based opportunities. We think we have real capability to do that in many instances. It is also a source of cash for us. We have talked about what our goals are in terms of re-rotating capital out of this bundle of assets into opportunities to unlock value, whether it is in telecom or elsewhere. I think six investments in that group account for 80% of the value.

If anyone's interested in doing the work, here's the good news. You don't have to look at 70 things. You have to look at six assets that account for 80% of that value. Two of those are in infrastructure, digital infrastructure. We were very early as a telco, I think, to the data center game. Now, we're not in it as big as we would like to be in it, but we definitely saw early on that data centers and this need for this infrastructure will be growing and important. We have two businesses there. We have a small stake in a global data center company called EdgeConnex. We invested 10 years ago in this business. I think our IRR so far is 30%. We've got a net $150 million in it today. It's worth $600 million. If anybody wants to buy it, come see me afterwards.

We would monetize it just because it's a 5% stake, but it's real value creation. If anybody's wondering, like, what are you doing with all these things? What makes you think you know what you're doing? Just look at that one. Put in $150 million. It's worth $600 million. We've already taken $50 million out. We started another one, more of a homegrown play called Atlas Edge, where we seeded some property assets in together with Digital Bridge. We are a tier two data center player, looking to get to about 200 megawatts, something like that. Maybe got $350 million in that. We market conservatively at $500 million. Look at this piece of the ecosystem. It's pretty vibrant right now. We are in a good spot with those two businesses. That's over $1 billion of value that another $3 a share we don't get credit for.

What will we do with that? Watch. We will exit. We will use the cash. We will maybe create a digital infrastructure spinoff of some sort, combine other assets. It is a real opportunity for us. The tech space is traditional venture capital, where we have got about $400 million net in today in AI, cyber, cloud, real smart investments. The media space is mostly sports. Out of that $3.4 billion, we have exited about $300 million this year. There is another $1 billion we can exit there. It is a source of cash to do some of the things I described earlier in the telecom platform that is yet to be utilized. I am not giving you a timeframe on the $1 billion.

I'm simply saying that we think as we look at the portfolio, a lot of these things that do not fit or we had a long pad for a long time, we can turn into cash. It is a source of cash. It is a source of growth. Many of these things are big assets. Formula E, these are big assets that are worth hundreds of millions or billions and will over time be what we are talking about up here. I am pretty sure of that.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Yeah. You have got the target of $500 million-$750 million in non-core disposals within that. Can you just highlight some of the progress that you have done, like on ITV, for instance?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Oh, you had to go there.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: I know.

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Yeah. We said $500 million-$750 million. We've done 300 exits this year. I recall him saying, "We're going to be patient. We're going to be smart." We felt a little pressure. We sold half our ITV stake and then the Sky rumor. It's a good example of we shouldn't, on things like this, it's not guidance. It's sort of an aspiration. We'll see. We don't have the need, but we're sitting on $2.2 billion of cash by year-end. Assuming no more asset sales, we will have $2.2 billion of cash at year-end, arguably no use of proceeds today. We can talk about the various things we'd like to do, but we're sitting on quite a bit of cash as we sit here, five, six bucks with cash or more.

We have got to figure out what we are going to do with that, but we can replenish that cash, and we will continue to do it in a smart way at the right time.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay. And then a word on Formula E.

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Okay. Get me started. Listen, I think you zoom out. No question that Formula One and certainly a lot of other sports have thrived post-COVID. This experience economy is, in our view, I think many people share this view, is really strong and vibrant and probably going nowhere but up. It's difficult to own anything in sports that's global, that has global reach. We think motorsports in particular is pretty exciting. Now, add on top of that, we're starting our 12th season, so it's early days. If you look at it, what makes it interesting? Why are we reaching this tipping point that's got me excited? It's awareness. It's excitement, but it's speed. This car is doing this. I mean, we're all Formula One experts now, so I'm not going to pretend I know more than anybody else. The Formula One car inches faster, changes.

Sometimes it's slower depending on the season. This car is doing this. When we first started, the thing was lucky to go 140 mi an hour. We are testing the Gen 4 car now. You can go online, check it out. It's awesome looking. Well over 200 mi an hour, 0 to 60 in 1.8 seconds. It is physics. I don't care if you ever buy an electric vehicle or if you give a crud about electric vehicles. Electric motors kick ass, and they are going nowhere but up. I'm excited to see Gen 5, Gen 6. We put some slicks on this thing. The racing is what's got me excited. The speed and the racing. We got to do a better job of getting noisy, being noisy, getting celebrities. That's all going to happen. We're in our 12th season. To me, we pretty much break even.

It generates quarterly revenue, breaks even. We're not putting a lot of money into it in this season. It is exciting. We are racing in China, in Tokyo, in Brazil, in Mexico, in the US, in Europe. It has all the ingredients to be, I think. I talk to people in and around F1 all the time, and they do not disagree. It has all the ingredients to be, I think, super important in motorsports. Put the sustainability stuff aside. It is net zero since day zero. That is awesome, but it is fast. That is what has got me excited.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Very clear. Let's turn to Liberty Services and Corporate. This is an area where you had the improved EBITDA guidance actually throughout the year. What savings have you made in this area? How sustainable are these?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: As I said, we started the year saying we're going to spend $200 million net corporate spend. Again, remember, at our top co, we have no debt. We just have people and expertise and relationships with our opcos and service agreements and these types of things. We said we would spend $200 million. That is now down to $150 million for the full year, just in-year reduction of spend. That run rates to $100 million next year. It is in the bag, sort of $200 million to $100 million. This is what we were getting a $10 ding on our stock for. How did we do that? Got more efficient in some of our tech service platforms, but mostly headcount reduction. We have reduced the headcount at the top co by 40% by year-end, year over year.

We went to four days a week and gave people an option to voluntarily leave, and 20% did, which is, in my book, just fine. We had another 20% of involuntary departures. We were much leaner. We reshaped the operating model, and we go into 2026 spending 50% less at that corporate. We think there are opportunities to bring that down further. Not necessarily with further headcount, though that is always in the possibility, but also at reallocating some of that corporate to certain of these growth assets where we are providing services, getting better at how we are charging the opcos for services. There are ways of generating incremental revenue to the top co that would bring that number down further. I am not giving you an estimate of what that might be, but meaningfully less. That is upside that is definitely not in our stock.

Maybe we have to prove it to get there, but we've already demonstrated 200-150, and run rate is 100 next year. At some point, a couple of analysts have started doing the work. The rest will do it when they get around to it. That is a pretty significant adjustment in the corporate operating model that I think we have room to grow, room to do more.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: The value creation opportunities in this unit around Liberty Bloom.

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: I think Bloom's interesting. I mean, everybody, I don't know how many of our peers have done this, but Bloom essentially was a department that we've carved out, right? Service carve-outs are happening right and left. In this case, we do about GBP 100 million of revenue, mostly to the opcos. Back office solutions is about two-thirds of that. Procurement, insurance, energy management, not really sexy stuff. We generate a margin on this. We decided to pull this out, call it Liberty Bloom. Now we've got Virgin Atlantic, Zayo, Canal Plus. We're starting to build a third-party revenue stream. We'll partner with people in this space. We've made acquisitions. It's a separate unit. It's got its own brand, its own team, its own P&L. We'll probably create a segment around it. These types of businesses trade at much higher multiples than we trade at.

If it is doing GBP 100 million of revenue today and that goes to GBP 200 million or GBP 300 million and they stick with their reasonable margin, it is a billion-dollar business. As far as we are concerned, all the pressure is on the management team. You want to go give this a shot. We will carve it out and give it a shot. It feels like it could be something substantial. Again, when you are trading at $10 a share, a dollar here, $4 there, it all adds up. These are things not really nobody is doing the work on this. Fair enough. We are doing the work on it. In time, we will demonstrate the value.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay. And then turning to share buybacks. You've consistently bought back shares. I think you're trending towards 5% of shares being bought back since the start of the year. Given the share price where it is, is there scope to do more, do you think, over time?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Listen, I mean, just a little bit of history for those who may not know it. I think in the last eight or nine years, we went from 900 million shares to 335 million shares by the end of the year. That's a 65% reduction, something like that, in our share count since 2017. By the way, it cost us $15 billion. I think we've done a substantial amount of shrink on a relatively small company to begin with. If you owned 1% of Liberty Global in 2017, when we spun off Sunrise, you owned 2.5% of Sunrise. That's a good trade. It's worked, right? I mean, you've already multiplied your ownership stake through our buybacks. We'll buy back, as you said, trending towards 5%. We'll do that next year too. Let's see. We have multiple uses of capital. I've talked about a few of them.

Deleveraging to unlock value, potentially some things in the growth area, buyback. We will be opportunistic about it, and we will give you a heads-up in February where we are trending, what we are seeing. I think we want to, the value unlocks like Sunrise. These are the things that are really going to move the stock. If you are saying to yourself, "Walk out of this room and say, 'Why should I buy this stock?'" Okay. We are a telco. We are doing all the same things everybody is doing, trying to drive revenue, be efficient, use AI, etc., etc., etc. I think what makes us unique is this commitment to unlocking value. We are not resting. I am not an empire builder. This commitment to unlocking value is an urgency that I have, that John shares, that our board shares.

We will be using all the things we have at our disposal to do that. We have talked about a lot of them today. That will be value creation right there. This is something we know how to do.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay. Very clear. Let's just pause once again to see any questions from the audience. Anything's come up? Oh, Sean at the front. Please, can we have a microphone brought to the front?

Or we can repeat the question, I guess.

Yeah.

Thanks so much. I was hoping you could comment on John Malone's kind of movement to less involved on your board and kind of across the portfolio of all the Liberty companies. Does that change anything functionally? What's kind of your thought process there? For the first time in a long time, European cable and telcos in a better position than US. Maybe how would you assess the competitive landscape kind of across the globe and how it affects Liberty Global specifically?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Sure. Let me start with John. I think I've worked with him half my life, this guy. I won't ever work with anybody as impactful, as unique as him. Now, here's the good news. I'm still working with him. He may not be on the board January 1 and have a board vote, but he's my first phone call. I would not overestimate the news. I wouldn't overestimate the impact of the news. I think he's going to be 85. He's certainly looking to be less tied down, and he wants to have time to do lots of things. He has tons of energy, and he's definitely focused as a significant shareholder on what we're doing, on what everybody in his ecosystem is doing. We've had a relationship for 25, 30 years. We will continue to have one, and he's my go-to.

I would not overestimate the change there. He has always given us the bandwidth and the freedom to do the things we want to do. He has been a great coach, a great mentor, a great cheerleader, and he will always be that for us. I think it is, I guess it is interesting news. It is important news. I think from my point of view, it is business as usual. In terms of Europe versus U.S., could not agree more. I think the U.S. is at a rough patch, at least in the fixed space, partially because I do not think the CapEx window looks as interesting. In Europe, what is clear is 5G nearly done, depending on the market. Fiber and/or upgrade, fixed networks, nearly done, depending on the market. There is light at the end of the tunnel. That light at the end of the tunnel means one thing: free cash flow.

You can drive free cash. You're seeing it in our peers and to some extent in our markets. If you can drive free cash, pay dividends, or allocate capital effectively, there's a value creation story there. There's also this tailwind that the US doesn't have, this idea that, quite frankly, not only is this critical infrastructure to consumers, heck, it's critical infrastructure to governments. With AI, we can talk about that all day long, but this notion of sovereignty in Europe is quite strong. Governments are looking at their players, incumbents and otherwise, and saying, "Wow, this is really we got to get this right. This is not something to mess around with." Yes, we need cheap products, and consumers have to be happy.

This is much more, it is a bigger game we are playing now with a trillion, coming up with a trillion of annual spend on AI infrastructure, all the changes that are going to happen, good and bad, in this space. I think Europe has some tailwinds that the U.S. does not have. It has this CapEx window, I think, starting to look better, this light at the end of the tunnel. It has, I think we talked about it, some regulatory support, political support for investment and consolidation, which is critical. We have already lowered prices. I mean, 85% of our customers in the U.K. are already at the front book price. We do not have this massive back book to front book erosion that the U.S. might encounter if it continues on that path. Pricing has been established here. It is cheap. Let us just be clear.

It is dirt cheap to have mobile and broadband in Europe compared to the U.S. or almost anywhere else. We have been there. We have done that. It is behind us. I think there are lots of things to be positive about. Quite frankly, you do not need a big move in multiples. Let us be clear. Give me half a turn. Give me a turn. It is like $8. Give me half a turn. Just half a turn. Walk out of here and say, "You know what? I like Mike. I am going to give him half a turn today. You watch my stock go up 50%." I do not need complete reinvention of the business model. You just need sentiment to be more aligned with what we think is reality. You do not have that in the U.S., I do not think, right now. Good place to invest.

Yeah.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Another question here, please. It's just coming.

Thanks. You guys have always been great at clearly leverage, tax. Is it inconceivable that Liberty needs to be a listed stock?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Does it need to be or it needs to be?

In your view, to do everything you want to do, does it need to be listed?

Oh, not necessarily. Not necessarily. No. I don't think so. Now, there are advantages. When you have public shareholders who you can spin things off to tax-free, that's an advantage, right? The shareholders who hung on to Sunrise did well and got the stock tax-free in a dividend, sorry, in a corporate dividend to them. There are some advantages, and then there are disadvantages. I got to get up on stages like this and whine and whinge. I think in the end, it doesn't change what we do. It does open up the aperture a bit for value unlock opportunities, although we could take something public just as easily as we spin it. There are opportunities to do that. I think you can achieve a lot of the things we achieve on a private basis. There's permanent capital as a positive thing.

There's a reason why private equity shops want to go public. There's this idea of having permanent capital gives you longer-term horizons. When you rent money and you rent assets, you have a different approach. I'm renting money, and I'm renting the asset because the money's got to go back to somebody in five years. And quite frankly, I got to sell the asset to give it back to them. That kind of that's a difficult, it's doable, of course, but at a public company, you don't have to think that way.

What's the last time Liberty operated?

Oh, you mean a Wright's Offering or something like that?

Yeah.

I think it would be going quite a ways back, Rick. I'm going to test your memory here. It would be.

All the capital losses.

Yeah, maybe 10 years ago if we did it then. But we did a couple ways back. Listen, this is John's favorite tool. He loves these things, rights offerings, because he's always in. And if you're not in, he'll happily buy your rights. I'll happily buy your rights. So depending on how you structure it. But we're sitting on over $2 billion of cash. And I just told you I think I can raise another $1 billion from my portfolio. So let's say we got $3 billion of cash. Cash isn't my biggest issue. It's putting that cash to work to unlock value. And whether that's delivering an asset in Belgium to get it out to the public and trade it seven, eight times and not five, whether that's other businesses within the growth portfolio that are needle-mover businesses, not small things, or whether that's buying stock.

I've got some uses of capital, but I don't think cash is the biggest concern as we sit here. Yeah, those are the right questions that you're asking.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Very good. If I were to follow up on that and just thinking very long term, maybe into next decade, assuming that you are still a public company and you have completed all of the value unlock and various spin-offs in Liberty Global, how do you see your equity story? What will Liberty Global be in the very long term?

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: That is the existential question. To me, it is less relevant than how much wealth have I created for these people. I do not really care what it looks like, to be honest with you, as long as getting to that point has resulted in more things like Sunrise, more value creation moments. We will figure that part out. That is not what drives me or John. If it disappears because it does not need to be around anymore, that is okay. I will find out something else to do. It is more about delivering value, returning value. That is really what it is about for me and for him and for you. I am not as stressed about the existential end game and what it all looks like. I am much more focused on today, tomorrow, and next year.

How are we delivering on the promise to create value for shareholders who have been in the stock a long time or those who have just gotten in and believe that there's an opportunity for real upside here?

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay. I wanted to end with a question about Dr. John Malone. That's been partly asked, but I wanted to ask you about the highlights working with him.

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Oh, goodness. I mean, I don't know if you've read the book. You should read it. It's pretty interesting. It's definitely, to steal a line from Hamilton, it brings you in the room. There are some red threads in there that I think are absolutely right. The people that he's done business with in his life, myself included, I think are what has been the highlight for him. There's a lot about Rupert and Barry and Ted Turner and other people that he's worked closely with or mentored. There are a lot of really good lessons in there. He talks about his first mentor who said to him, "Look, just focus on one question. What's the worst thing that could happen? And if you can live with that, take the risk. What's the worst thing that could happen?

If the worst thing that could happen is acceptable, then you absolutely take the risk. He learned that at mid-20s or something like that. You have to adapt. He has one chapter called Adapt or Die. He is right. If you look at how we are a case study in that. When I started this business, we were 100% cable television. Now that is less than 15% of my revenue. We are 50% mobile, B2B, broadband is the third. I mean, we are very much about adapting and inventing. He certainly makes that case clear. I will tell you an interesting bit, though, which I tell people. We did this book launch for him. I was on stage with Barry Diller and David Zaslav with John. It occurred to me as I was arriving for that. He sold TCI when he was about 60 years old in 1999, 2000 for $58 billion.

It was an okay deal because the AT&T stock did not work out, but whatever. It was the first big thing. Almost everything he has done that you know about, he has done since the age of 60. I do not know how old you all are. Some of you are young out there. It is certainly encouraging for a 62-year-old like me. He is 84 and still going at it. Most of what he has done is in the last 24 years. This guy has endless, endless energy. I would encourage you to read the book. I got lots of copies. If you want one, give your email, give your business card to Rick or Michael or Lewis, and we will get you a copy. It is fantastic to work with him.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay. Thank you very much, Mike.

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Thank you.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Great to have you.

Mike Fries, CEO and Co-founder, Liberty Global: Nice to see you all.

Terrence Su, Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Thank you. Thank you so much.

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