Liberty Global reports Q1 2026 results
Liberty Global today announced its Q1 2026 financial results.
CEO Mike Fries stated, “In the first quarter, we made continued progress against our operational and strategic goals while remaining fully focused on unlocking and crystallizing value for shareholders. We are on track with our Ziggo Group plans, including the acquisition of Vodafone’s 50% stake in VodafoneZiggo which should close in July and the building blocks required to spin-off our interest to shareholders in H2 2027. After an encouraging commercial performance in Q1, we are reiterating all 2026 full-year guidance targets.
Liberty Telecom: Our Telecom operations delivered strong Q1 commercial results with sequential improvement in broadband net adds across our markets. Virgin Media O2 further optimized its fixed commercial initiatives and launched O2 Satellite, becoming the first UK operator to provide direct-to-device satellite connectivity. VodafoneZiggo improved broadband net adds for the fourth consecutive quarter since its new strategic plan while Telenet achieved its best broadband performance in over 10 years, driven by exceptional sales execution and cross-sell campaigns. Virgin Media Ireland delivered another positive quarter of wholesale growth, while driving positive postpaid mobile net adds for the fifth consecutive quarter.
Liberty Growth: We continued to execute our strategy of rotating capital within the Growth portfolio during Q1, exiting half of our 5% stake in ITV and a portion of our EdgeConneX investment, with combined disposal proceeds of ~$180m in the quarter and $300m through April. The portfolio remains concentrated, with our top five investments comprising ~65% of its $3.4B FMV at March 31, 2026. We have also moved Liberty Blume into a new ‘Services’ pillar in the portfolio, to reflect its increased focus on third-party revenue growth going forward. Liberty Growth continues to be a significant source of capital and we are focused on investing in sectors that have structural tailwinds along with a clear path to value creation.
Liberty Corporate: As we highlighted at our year-end call, we delivered a substantial reshaping of our corporate operating model that will result in a ~75% improvement to our Adj. EBITDA outlook for this year compared to 2024. As we look ahead, we remain committed to identifying further efficiencies and are squarely focused on executing our strategy to grow and deliver value directly to shareholders.
We ended the first quarter with a consolidated cash balance of $1.9 billion, reflecting disciplined capital allocation and further non-core asset disposals, as we rotate capital into higher growth investments and strategic transactions.”
