The combination of Liberty Global’s Virgin Media unit with Vodafone United Kingdom would have created a strong quad-play provider better-positioned to compete with a merged BT/EE.

Vodafone has confirmed that discussions with Liberty Global regarding a possible exchange of selected assets between the two companies have terminated.

Liberty, which owns Virgin Media’s United Kingdom business, among other companies across Europe, had been in talks with Vodafone over the summer, with discussions rumoured to have been underway since December of a year ago.

Both companies have operations in Western Europe, including in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, which analysts have long said could potentially be combined or swapped.

Vodafone, the world’s second-largest mobile-phone company, announced the termination of discussions Monday, nearly four months after disclosing the talks. The 700 million euros of German unit Unitymedia GmbH’s January 2027 bonds declined 5.1 cents to a record 84.4 cents.

However, talks had stalled in recent weeks and the deal looked increasingly unlikely after Mr Malone said they “hadn’t been able to figure out a way to [make it] mutually successful”.

Three owner Hutchison Whampoa is buying mobile operator O2 in a £10 billion deal while telecoms giant BT is acquiring EE for £12.5 billion in a transaction expected to complete next year. In an interview with Bloomberg at the time he said that there had been no proposed structure for a deal that either of the two companies could pitch to shareholders.