Cable & Wireless Communications, a company that provides a mix of serves in 19 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, this week confirmed John Reid as CEO.

The confirmation follows the recent acquisition of C&W by Liberty Global for $7.4 billion. The C&W businesses is now part of Liberty Latin America and Caribbean Group (LiLAC).

RELATED: Liberty Global Closes Cable & Wireless Deal

Prior to his role as Interim CEO of C&W, Reid served as C&W’s President, Consumer Division

“This is a time of meaningful change and development for C&W, and I am excited for the expertise and continuity that John brings to this growing region,” Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global, said in a statement. 

“I am honored to lead C&W Communications into the next phase of our development. I look forward to achieving our growth objectives, creating greater value for our stakeholders, and transforming our employee and customer experience,” Reid added.

Reid holds a B.A. and an M.B.A. from Memorial University of Newfoundland, serves as the Chairman of Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC), a 49% subsidiary of C&W, and is a member of the Advisory Board of Caribbean Tales.

Ericsson said it has notched a two-year deal with Liberty Global properties in Latin America to expand the MSO’s DVR services with Catch-Up TV and Restart TV capabilities.

Ericsson, which will enable that with its video storage and processing platform, said the deal involves VTR in Chile and Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico, operators that are part of the Liberty Global’s LiLAC Group.

"We are looking forward to supporting LiLAC Group in delivering ever-improving content, quality and features that delight TV consumers and meet their unique and ever-changing needs. With our solution we are addressing all customer segments with unique configurations, while providing LiLAC Group with the ability to future-proof and grow as they see necessary,” Adrian Gioia, Head of TV & Media, Ericsson Latin America and Caribbean, said in a statement.

Ericsson has been building out its cloud DVR and cloud video capabilities through acquisitions such as Fabrix Systems in 2014, and Envivio in 2015. Ericsson, which closed its acquisition of Microsoft's Mediaroom business in the fall of 2013, has also been pushing ahead with MediaFirst, a cloud-powered, multiscreen platform for MVPDs and OTT providers. 

Liberty Global closed its $7.4 billion acquisition of Cable & Wireless Communications, giving the international cable company a stronger presence in the Latin American market.

Liberty Global first announced the Cable & Wireless transaction in November. Last month, its shareholders overwhelmingly approved the deal.

The C&W businesses will be housed within Liberty Latin America and Caribbean Group (LiLAC), creating a combined company with 10 million customers in 20 countries with annualized revenue of $3.5 billion.

“This is a big moment for us and I couldn’t be more excited about the potential of LiLAC and CWC together,” Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries said in a statement. “We are joining two high-growth businesses in a region that is both underpenetrated and underserved in broadband, mobile data and pay TV services. By combining our operations, we are creating a unique and well-diversified Latin America and Caribbean investment vehicle, which we believe will enhance long-term equity value for our shareholders.”

Liberty Global said it has set the date for a special meeting of shareholders to vote on its pending purchase of Caribbean telecom and cable company, Cable & Wireless.

Liberty Global will convene the meeting on April 20 at the Four Seasons Hotel Denver, at 10:00 a.m. Mountain Time. Only shareholders of record of Liberty Global Class A and Class B Ordinary Shares and LiLAC Class A and Class B Ordinary Shares as of 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on March 10 may vote at the meeting. The event will be webcast and details will be forthcoming.

Liberty agreed to purchase Cable & Wireless in November in a deal that values the company at about $5.3 billion.

Liberty Global said overall subscriber growth was back on track as it added 320,000 total revenue generating units, including 296,000 in Europe, across its service categories in the third quarter of 2015, but  shed 64,000 video subs in the period.

At the end of the quarter, Liberty Global Group (Europe) had 53.2 million RGUs across its footprint of 48.8 million homes passed in the region, comprised of 22.8 million video subs, 16.6 million high-speed Internet customers, and 13.8 million phone subs. With Liberty’s Latin America and Caribbean (LiLAC) Group, which operates in Chile and Puerto Rico, factored in, the company ended Q3 with  56.65 million total RGUs, 24.08 million video subs, 17.87 million high-speed Internet subs, and 14.69 million phone subs.

Driven in part by results at Ziggo, the cable unit  based in the Netherlands, Liberty Global said Q3 was its strongest quarter ever for Horizon TV, its primary next-gen video platform. Its total next-gen TV base grew by 339,000, coming way of Horizon TV (248,000 adds) and TiVo (91,000 adds).  Liberty Global ended the quarter with 4.3 million video subs in the next-gen category.

With about 20% of its cable video base on next-gen platforms, “we see ample up-sell potential ahead of us,” the company said.

Still, that next-gen momentum was not enough to offset overall video losses of 64,000 in Q3, the lowest quarterly net loss for video in 2015, but not better than the 49,000 video subs lost in the year-ago quarter.

"Subscriber growth is back on track with 320,000 RGU additions in the third quarter, including 220,000 new broadband subscribers,” Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries said. “This acceleration in volume growth was fueled by our operations in Germany and the U.K. Continued traction of our cutting-edge Horizon TV platform resulted in a record quarter of almost 250,000 new subscriptions. The execution of our aggressive technology roadmap continues delivering innovative products like our recently launched Replay TV functionality and next-generation WiFi gateway.”

Overall sales rose 2.2%, to $4.6 billion year-over year, beating the $4.47 billion expected by analysts, according to Bloomberg.  Those revenues included $4.3 billion from Liberty Global Group (Europe) and $309 million from LiLAC. 

Liberty Global is scheduled to discuss the Q3 results in more detail Friday morning. 

Betzalel Sergio Kenigsztein, currently the managing Director for Liberty’s Central and Eastern European  (CEE) region, has been appointed to president and chief operating officer of Liberty Global’s Latin American and Caribbean Operations.

In this role, which becomes effective July 1, Kenigsztein will report directly to Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries and focus on Liberty Global’s businesses in Chile and Puerto Rico. He is moving into that role as Liberty Global moves ahead with a plan to implement a tracking stock for the Liberty Latin America and Caribbean (LiLAC) group on July 1.

Kenigsztein joined Liberty Global in 2004 as CTO of Liberty’s business in the Netherlands, and, in 2009, was appointed managing director of Hungary. In 2013, Kenigsztein was promoted to managing director for the CEE region, which encompasses over 8 million video, voice and broadband RGUs across five countries.  Prior to joining Liberty Global, he held a range of senior management positions in the Israeli cable industry.

"We are committed to growing our business in the Latin American and Caribbean region through the LiLAC tracking stock, and Betzalel brings extensive strategic and operational knowledge to this new role,” Fries said, in a statement. “I have worked with Betzalel for many years and have great confidence in his ability to support our world-class operations in Chile and Puerto Rico, and lead the development of new opportunities in this fast-growing region."

Liberty Global said a successor for Kenigsztein’s role at the CEE region will be announced in “due course.”