Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao has described the mobile giant’s minority investments as not “core”, according to the Financial Times. This presupposes a potential sale of some minority stakes in overseas telcos, which could help “quell a potential…
Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao has described the mobile giant’s minority investments as not “core”, according to the Financial Times. This presupposes a potential sale of some minority stakes in overseas telcos, which could help “quell a potential rebellion” at the company’s AGM, which takes place tomorrow. Possible disposals could include its 45% stake in US mobile company Verizon Wireless, a 44% slice of French mobile operator SFR and its 24.4% ownership of Poland’s Polkomtel. According to the FT, the group’s 3.2% stake in China Mobile, which is worth an estimated US$6.5bn, would be the simplest exit.
Colao said that any proceeds could be spent on shareholder dividends, as well as new investments.
According to today’s FT, the company’s board is to start recruiting for a replacement for chairman Sir John Bond. Sources told the paper that plans for this search had been underway prior to complaints about Bond and senior independent director John Buchanan led by shareholder Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, which has said the operator has shown “significant structural and strategic weakness, resulting in [Vodafone] trading at a substantial, persistent discount to its asset value.
On Friday, the company reported that Q1 revenues were up 4.8% to £11.262bn, while also agreeing to pay a ‘controlled foreign companies’ tax bill of £1.25bn, a move seen by the Financial Times as ‘evidence of a rapprochement between big business and the new government over tax’. Weekend reports also suggested this signalled a ‘more conciliatory approach’ by Revenue and Customs. The tax bill centred on a 2000 deal for German phone firm Mannesmann, and Vodafone’s creation at that time of a holding company in low-tax Luxembourg.
