Vodafone’s CEO has said that the company has no plans to sell its 45% stake in US mobile operator Verizon Wireless, reports German magazine Capital.
Vittorio Colao was cited saying that he saw no reason to leave this “excellent” company.
Verizon Wireless…
Vodafone’s CEO has said that the company has no plans to sell its 45% stake in US mobile operator Verizon Wireless, reports German magazine Capital.
Vittorio Colao was cited saying that he saw no reason to leave this “excellent” company.
Verizon Wireless is a JV between Verizon Communications, which holds a 55% stake, and Vodafone.
Colao’s comments came after AT&T agreed to buy T-Mobile USA from German incumbent Deutsche Telekom earlier in the week. If this deal is approved by regulators, Verizon Wireless would be pushed firmly into second place by number of subscribers.
Speculation has been rife for years that Verizon Communications has been trying to push Vodafone out of the JV by not paying a dividend.
Dividends were first suspended in 2005, with Verizon citing the large debt burden of Verizon Wireless, which had recently acquired its US rival Alltech for US$14bn.
Rumours have circulated this year that dividends from Verizon Wireless may be set to return.
A Verizon Wireless spokesman told TelecomFinance earlier in March that there would be no dividends in 2011, but the company would reassess at the end of the year whether to make dividends in 2012.
Verizon Wireless claims to have 93.2 million subscribers, although it also claims to have 7.9 million “other connections”.
If the AT&T deal goes through, the new company will have over 129 million subscribers.
