The new CEO of US telco Verizon Communications has said that he does not foresee a “combination” between his company and British telco Vodafone.
Verizon holds a 55% stake in the mobile operator Verizon Wireless, with Vodafone holding the remaining…
The new CEO of US telco Verizon Communications has said that he does not foresee a “combination” between his company and British telco Vodafone.
Verizon holds a 55% stake in the mobile operator Verizon Wireless, with Vodafone holding the remaining stake in the company.
In a conference call with analysts on Friday, CEO and president Lowell McAdam said: “Regarding Vodafone, look, I don’t see a combination here. I think that we can do what we need to do in our markets; they can do what they need to do in their markets; we can leverage each others scale.
“But I would not send any kind of messages here that anything like that is immediately on the horizon.”
McAdam said that the goal of both himself and Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao had been “to try to turn the temperature down a little bit and to improve the bottom line of the relationship”.
McAdam confirmed that Verizon Wireless would be providing a dividend, although he did not specify a date.
The issue of the Verizon Wireless dividend has been a source of much speculation over the past year.
The dividends from Verizon Wireless were suspended in 2005 in order to pay down debt accrued from its US$14bn acquisition of mobile operator Alltech.
McAdam was talking on the day that he was formally named Verizon Communications’ new president and CEO.
McAdam was formerly CEO at Verizon Wireless. He moved to become COO at Verizon Communications in September 2010.
He had previously worked as CEO of PrimeCo Personal Communications, a JV owned by Bell Atlantic and Vodafone Airtouch.
McAdam will replace Ivan Seidenberg in the Verizon CEO role, although Seidenberg will remain as the company’s chairman.
Seidenberg said: “As a member of Verizon’s executive leadership team since 2000 and COO over the last 10 months, Lowell has proven his ability to move the organisation quickly and to focus on strong performance on behalf of our employees, our customers and our investors.”
Verizon also announced its Q2 results on Friday.
These showed net income of US$3.6bn in the quarter, up from US$553m in the same quarter last year.
