The shrinking Liberty Global empire has been a hive of activity in recent weeks. Over the summer break, the cable giant slipped in a $7.4bn takeover offer for Swiss service provider Sunrise, in a reversal of last year’s M&A efforts in the country – which saw Sunrise’s repeated attempts to buy Liberty’s UPC Switzerland blocked by German telco Freenet, Sunrise’s majority shareholder. It was somewhat surprising that it took so long for Liberty to return to the table after last year’s deal broke down. But Liberty has built a business on an M&A masterclass dating back decades, so despite paying a 32% premium for Sunrise, this is still a highly opportunistic deal. It is, on the surface, counter-intuitive however. The…