British mobile phone giant Vodafone has announced the sale of its 3.2 percent stake in China Mobile (中國移動通信) for around £4.3 billion (US$6.6 billion).
The sale, announced late on Tuesday, is the first in what is expected to be a series of sell-offs of Vodafone’s minority holdings as it seeks to focus on core markets in a bid to improve its share price.
About 70 percent of the net proceeds of the China Mobile sale, after tax and transaction costs, will be returned to shareholders through a share buyback, Vodafone said. The remainder will be used to reduce the group’s debt.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“People will of course look through this to future disposals,” said Mark James, an analyst at Liberum Capital in London. “The bigger ones are likely to prove harder.”
China Mobile, which is 74 percent owned by the Chinese state, received notice of the sale from Vodafone yesterday, the company said in an e-mailed statement.
“Since 2000, China Mobile and Vodafone have had close cooperation in business, technology and other areas,” the statement said. “In the future, both companies will continue cooperation in these areas.”
Vodafone, the world’s biggest mobile operator by revenue, initially bought a 2.18 percent stake in China Mobile in 2000 and increased its holding to 3.2 percent in 2002.
The group said that despite the sell-off it would continue cooperating with China Mobile. Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao said in a statement that the sale “combines our stated portfolio strategy with ongoing cooperation with China’s leading telecommunications company.”
Colao has previously stressed to investors that the moblie phone group is determined to reshape its portfolio of assets and focus on core markets in Europe, Asia and India.
He told Vodafone’s annual general meeting in July that the company was not aiming to “manage minorities,” as he headed off a shareholder rebellion over the slow progress of sell-offs.
CROSS-STRAIT COLLABORATION: The new KMT chairwoman expressed interest in meeting the Chinese president from the start, but she’ll have to pay to get in Beijing allegedly agreed to let Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) around the Lunar New Year holiday next year on three conditions, including that the KMT block Taiwan’s arms purchases, a source said yesterday. Cheng has expressed interest in meeting Xi since she won the KMT’s chairmanship election in October. A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consensus on a meeting was allegedly reached after two KMT vice chairmen visited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) in China last month. Beijing allegedly gave the KMT three conditions it had to
‘BALANCE OF POWER’: Hegseth said that the US did not want to ‘strangle’ China, but to ensure that none of Washington’s allies would be vulnerable to military aggression Washington has no intention of changing the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Saturday, adding that one of the US military’s main priorities is to deter China “through strength, not through confrontation.” Speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, Hegseth outlined the US Department of Defense’s priorities under US President Donald Trump. “First, defending the US homeland and our hemisphere. Second, deterring China through strength, not confrontation. Third, increased burden sharing for us, allies and partners. And fourth, supercharging the US defense industrial base,” he said. US-China relations under
The Chien Feng IV (勁蜂, Mighty Hornet) loitering munition is on track to enter flight tests next month in connection with potential adoption by Taiwanese and US armed forces, a government source said yesterday. The kamikaze drone, which boasts a range of 1,000km, debuted at the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition in September, the official said on condition of anonymity. The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology and US-based Kratos Defense jointly developed the platform by leveraging the engine and airframe of the latter’s MQM-178 Firejet target drone, they said. The uncrewed aerial vehicle is designed to utilize an artificial intelligence computer
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday decided to shelve proposed legislation that would give elected officials full control over their stipends, saying it would wait for a consensus to be reached before acting. KMT Legislator Chen Yu-jen (陳玉珍) last week proposed amendments to the Organic Act of the Legislative Yuan (立法院組織法) and the Regulations on Allowances for Elected Representatives and Subsidies for Village Chiefs (地方民意代表費用支給及村里長事務補助費補助條例), which would give legislators and councilors the freedom to use their allowances without providing invoices for reimbursement. The proposal immediately drew criticism, amid reports that several legislators face possible charges of embezzling fees intended to pay
RSS