The problem of buying a company where John Malone is an investor, especially when you make some of the payments in shares, is that he may turn around with his large shareholding and insider knowledge of operations, and buy the enlarged company. This is pretty much what happened as we went to press last week, and Malone’s Liberty Global began looking at buying Cable & Wireless, only 11 months after it acquired Columbus, with Malone as a large shareholder. It’s hard to see clearly the benefits of this deal to Liberty Global, but having seen the conservative approach to running a business which Cable & Wireless has, it will be impossible for Malone not to make a large amount of…