(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire cable mogul John Malone’s plan for a $6.4 billion sale of UPC Switzerland unraveled after would-be purchaser Sunrise Communications AG concluded its shareholders don’t support the move.

Sunrise called off a shareholder vote scheduled for Wednesday on a rights offering to fund the purchase. A clear majority of shareholders who registered their shares to vote at the meeting wouldn’t support the capital increase, the Swiss company said in a statement Tuesday. Sunrise said the decision was made with consent from Liberty Global Plc.

Liberty Global Chairman Malone had agreed in February to sell the unit, raising the prospect that he would rake in a hefty cash pile to support a range of activities, including shareholder payouts and acquisitions in Western Europe. But Freenet AG, Sunrise’s biggest investor, railed against the purchase price and an influential proxy advisor came out against the deal last week, wiping out the possibility of success.

If the transaction fails, it would be the second setback this year for the man who sold cable provider Tele-Communications Inc. to AT&T Inc. for $48 billion in 1999, after his attempted purchase of Millicom International Cellular SA fell apart in January on price concerns.

--With assistance from Sam Nagarajan.

To contact the reporters on this story: Albertina Torsoli in Geneva at atorsoli@bloomberg.net;Thomas Seal in London at tseal@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Beth Mellor at bmellor@bloomberg.net, Thomas Mulier

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