Vodafone gets $130 billion for its 45% interest in Verizon Wireless
Verizon has announced it is buying out Vodafone's stake in Verizon Wireless for a total of $130 billion (£84 billion).
Vodafone is selling its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless to concentrate instead on mobile and unified communication services for its customers.
The deal consists of $58.9 billion (£38 billion) in cash, $60.2 billion (£38.9 billion) in Verizon shares, $5 billion (£3.2 billion) in Verizon loan notes, $3.5 billion (£2.3 billion) in the form of Verizon's 23% minority interest in Vodafone Italy, and $2.5 billion (£1.6 billion) through the assumption by Verizon of Vodafone net liabilities relating to the US group.
Vodafone Group chairman, Gerard Kleisterlee said: 'Our sustained investment in Verizon Wireless has created a great deal of value for shareholders from a market leader with great momentum. Verizon's offer now provides us with an opportunity to realise this value at an attractive price.
'The transaction will position Vodafone strongly to pursue our leadership strategy in mobile and unified communication services for consumers and enterprises both in our developed markets and across our emerging markets businesses. It will also enable us to provide substantial returns to individual shareholders and to the investment funds relied upon by savers and pensioners,' he concluded.
Vodafone intends to implement a new organic investment programme, Project Spring, to establish further network and service leadership through additional investments of £6 billion over the next three financial years.
The transactions are expected to complete in the first quarter 2014.
