COMPANY TOWN : Liberty Media in Venture With Microsoft, UPC

Liberty Media Group, AT&T; Corp.’s cable TV programming company, said Tuesday that it agreed to buy a stake in Europe’s second-largest cable company for $493 million in cash.

Liberty is forming a joint venture with Microsoft Corp. and cable firm United Pan-Europe Communications to cooperate on such issues as buying other cable companies and developing programs and technology. The three will own 14.5% of Denver-based UnitedGlobalCom Inc., which owns 62% of UPC.

Amsterdam-based UPC owns cable networks in 12 countries across Europe and Israel that can serve 8.6 million homes. It has been acquiring businesses as it tries to sell its combination of television, telephone and Internet services to as many customers as possible.

Englewood-based Liberty agreed to buy 4.93 million Class B United-GlobalCom shares from Leon Black’s Apollo Cable Partners and investors Larry F. DeGeorge and Larry G. DeGeorge. It will sell half those shares to Microsoft, which already owns about 8% of UPC.

Liberty and Microsoft will pool the shares into a 50-50 joint venture with UPC, which will contribute 2.78 million United Global Com Class A shares to the venture.

UnitedGlobalCom shares rose $15.50 to close at $89.25 on Nasdaq. Liberty Class A shares rose $1.19 to close at $36.06 on the New York Stock Exchange, and Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft’s shares fell $1.63 to close at $94.25 on Nasdaq.