Cable operator Liberty Global has bought German cable and broadband business Unitymedia for €2 billion ($2.96 billion; £1.79 billion) from its private equity owners BC Partners and Apollo Management. The deal expands Liberty’s worldwide network of companies and operators but it also means it takes on €1.5 billion of Unitymedia’s debt. The deal adds to Liberty’s operations across 14 countries—it had 17 million customers in Europe, Asia, South America and Australia as of September 30. Release.

Unity CEO Parm Sanhu says the deal will help the company along on its mission to cross-sell its digital TV subscriber base to fixed-line and broadband deals, adding that there’s still potential for growth in Germany’s “under-penetrated broadband and pay TV markets”. The Cologne-based firm has 4.5 million basic customers, 470,000 digital pay TV users and claims to have grabbed a 70 percent market share of broadband customer growth in countries where it offers upgraded services. UBS was Unity’s lead advisor on the deal.