Telecoms giant Vodafone announced on Friday, March 15, that it has agreed to sell its Italian unit to Swisscom for eight billion euros ($8.7 billion) in cash, completing efforts to overhaul the UK group’s European operations, according to a report by AFP.
Vodafone, which previously rejected offers from French billionaire Xavier Niel’s Iliad group for the unit, has been on a cost-cutting campaign that has included layoffs and the offloading of divisions abroad.
The UK group said it intends to return four billion euros to shareholders following the sales of its Italian and Spanish businesses, which together total 12 billion euros. Vodafone chief executive Margherita Della Valle said that the deal with Swisscom marked the “third and final step in the reshaping of our European operations”.
more to come
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Published: 15 Mar 2024, 04:32 PM IST