Liberty Global Plc Chairman John Malone famously clashed with fellow media magnate Barry Diller during an almost 20-year business partnership that involved joint ownership of the IAC Interactive media empire. “These last 17 years of my association with John Malone and Liberty Media have been a great, and occasionally, wild ride," Diller said in 2010 after an acrimonious business breakup that involved lawsuits, accusations of bad governance and sometimes heated negotiations.
Malone is embarking on another major media tie-up -- this time merging broadband network Virgin Media with O2, the U.K. wireless business of Spain’s Telefonica SA, to challenge former monopoly BT Group Plc as Britain’s dominant phone company.