Job cuts, lost customers and a £22bn debt pile: what has gone wrong at Virgin Media O2?

The company has lost 182,000 broadband and 644,000 mobile customers in two years and is operating in an increasingly competitive market competition

Mike Fries may be totting up swingeing job cuts, a £22bn debt pile and the loss of hundreds of thousands of customers, but he appears to be putting a brave face on the situation. “In our minds, anyway, this is not a crisis,” the boss of the co-owner of Virgin Media O2 said this week.

The UK telecoms company, which offers broadband, TV, landline and mobile services, had just announced £800m in cost savings, including potentially cutting up to a quarter of staff. Fries, the chief executive of Liberty Global, faced searching questions on its future and a potential refinancing of its huge debt pile next year.