Sandhu leaves as Liberty completes on Unitymedia deal
January 29, 2010
International cable operator Liberty Global has completed the previously announced E3.5 billion deal to acquire Unitymedia, Germany's second largest cable operator. Gene Musselman, President and Chief Operating Officer of UPC Broadband, will serve as acting Managing Director of Unitymedia in addition to his European role. The move sees Parm Sandhu, current Chief Executive Officer of Unitymedia, leaving the company to pursue other opportunities.
Mike Fries, President and Chief Executive Officer of Liberty Global said that Liberty Global was excited about the addition of Unitymedia to its European operations, adding that Sandhu and the entire management team at Unity had built a world class company which would add significant scale and growth opportunities to Liberty's European footprint.
Sandhu joined iesy, the Hesse cable operator, in 2003 from Liberty Media International, where he pursued numerous strategic acquisitions as Finance Director Europe. Prior to that he held a number of senior finance and strategy positions during six years with UK cable operator Telewest Communications plc.
At iesy, he completed the reverse takeover of ish, the cable operator in the heartland of Germany's economy, North Rhine-Westphalia, and subsequently the acquisition of Tele Columbus, Germany's then largest operator of in-house distribution networks. Their integration into one unified business with over five million customers created Germany's largest fully interconnected cable network and ended the 20 year old division between network levels 3 and 4 that had held back the introduction of new services.