The CEO of British telco Vodafone Group has said the company can spend between US$30bn and US$40bn on acquisitions over the coming years if they made strategic sense.
Vittorio Colao told reporters in New York that Vodafone was looking at sizeable…
The CEO of British telco Vodafone Group has said the company can spend between US$30bn and US$40bn on acquisitions over the coming years if they made strategic sense.
Vittorio Colao told reporters in New York that Vodafone was looking at sizeable acquisitions that could transform the company and that it had the capacity to do big deals.
Colao said Vodafone was keen to build up its fixed-line assets in Europe, its mobile operations in emerging markets, and its enterprise business. He did not name specific targets.
In an interview with US TV network CNBC, Colao added that Vodafone could look at entertainment and enterprise services, and expand to become the “Unilver of telecoms”.
Over the past week the UK-based telco has been strongly linked with a bid in the region of US$9.5bn for Spanish cableco Ono. It would be a similar move to its convergence play in Germany last year when it acquired Kabel Deutschland, which means it can now offer quadplay services.
Meanwhile in India, Vodafone recently received government approval to acquire 100% of its subsidiary in the country.
It has also been speculated that Vodafone may make a bid for pan-European cableco Liberty Global, although the US group has a market capitalisation of more than US$32bn and a merger could raise antitrust questions in markets such as Germany.
Colao reportedly said that Vodafone could conceivably raise its share of the global telecommunications market from 16%/17% to the 20% to 23% mark over the next few years.
Vodafone is set to close the sale of its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless later this month for US$130bn. Most of the proceeds from the Verizon transaction will go to investors and US$30bn will be put towards network upgrades. However Vodafone could still have around US$40bn left in spending money, according to a Reuters report which published Colao’s comments.
