Acquisitions In 2005, Liberty Global Europe bought the
Romanian communications company
Astral Telecom for $420 million, the
Swiss communications company
Cablecom for CHF2.8 billion, and the
Slovenian communications company UPC Telemach for EUR71 million. In 2007 UPC Telemach also bought 66.7% of Ljubljanski kabel (major competition in
Ljubljana) and grew its market share to 40% in
Slovenia.
Former UPC operations UPC sold French Citecable operations in France in 1996, in Germany in 1997 and Spain and Portugal in 1998. In 2002, UPC sold their 47% ownership interest in Tevel Israel International Communications Ltd. In 1999, UPC purchased approximately 25% of
Primacom cable company in Germany. In April 2000 UPC announced that will buy EWT/TSS Group and in 2001 EWT/TSS merged with Primacom. In 2006 UPC sold their remaining shares in company. In 2007, UPC sold their 50% shares in
Melita telecommunications company in Malta to GMT Communications Partners. UPC Norway was bought by
Candover Investments for $542 million and changed the name to
Get AS. UPC France was sold for $1.56 billion, in 2006, to Noos (Ypso Holding) before being integrated into
Numericable and then
SFR in 2016. UPC Sweden was sold in April 2006 for $427 million to
Com Hem. UPC acquired in 2005, the majority stake in the
Telemach operator in Slovenia, renaming it UPC Telemach. After the complete acquisition of all shares in 2008, the name was changed to UPC. In 2009 the company was resold to Telemach, returning to the old name. In October 2015,
UPC Ireland Was merged with Virgin Media Ireland, UPC got first rebranded with Chorus:NTL in 2010.
UPC Netherlands merged with
Ziggo, another Liberty Global subsidiary. The new company was formed under name Ziggo and in 2016 merged with
Vodafone Netherlands to form
VodafoneZiggo. UPC Austria was acquired by T-Mobile Austria on 31 July 2018 and fully integrated in
Magenta Telekom in May 2019. In July 2019,
Vodafone bought Liberty Global operations in Germany where operates
Unitymedia, another Liberty Global subsidiary, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic. On 31 March 2020 UPC Czech Republic merged with
Vodafone Czech Republic,
UPC Hungary merged with
Vodafone Hungary and
UPC Romania merged with
Vodafone Romania.
UPC Poland was sold to Polish cellular telecommunications provider
Play (owned by
Iliad Group) for US$1.8 billion. Deal was closed on 1 April 2022. In May 2022, Liberty Global re-branded its Swiss operation,
Sunrise UPC, as simply Sunrise, followed by its spin-off in November 2024. In 18 December 2025, Liberty Global sold the last UPC asset in Slovakia to E& PPF Telecom Group for €95 Million, making end to their UPC business. ==Divisions==