The problem of buying a company in which John Malone is an investor, especially when some of the payments are made in shares, is that he may turn around with his large shareholding and inside knowledge of operations, and buy the enlarged entity. This is pretty much what happened as Malone’s Liberty Global initiated talks to buy Cable & Wireless, only 11 months after it acquired Columbus, in which Malone is a large shareholder. It’s hard to see the strategic benefits of this deal to Liberty, but having seen C&W’s conservative approach to running a business, it will be impossible for Malone not to make a large amount of money from this deal by simply improving efficiencies. In November last…