“Vodafone Group Plc is in talks to sell its 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless to U.S. partner Verizon Communications Inc. in what would be the biggest deal in more than a decade,” Amy Thomson, Jeffrey McCracken and Olga Kharif report for Bloomberg News.
“The carriers are in advanced discussions about a sale of the holding for about $130 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter,” Thomson, McCracken and Kharif report. “Verizon is working with several banks to raise $10 billion from each, or enough to finance about $60 billion of the buyout, said two of the people, asking not to be identified because the talks are private.”
Thomson, McCracken and Kharif report, “Vodafone jumped as much as 9.6 percent to the highest price since 2002, adding more than $13 billion to the market value of the world’s second-largest wireless company. The acquisition would end a partnership of over a decade that has paid billions in dividends to Vodafone while constraining Verizon from full ownership of the most profitable U.S. mobile-phone company… An announcement could come as early as Sept. 2, said the people. As part of the transaction, Verizon will probably sell back to Vodafone its 23 percent stake in Vodafone Italia, which could be worth about 4 billion euros ($5.3 billion), said two of the people.”
Read more in the full article here.
Apple could buy it (the Vodaphone stake) and then dictate terms to Verizon. Won’t happen, but it would be entertaining.
That’s a lot of debt to carry for a company with a $139 billion market cap.
A whole lot of debt indeed.