Vodafone: set to sell Vodafone Italia to Swisscom

(CercleFinance.com) - On Wednesday, Vodafone Group announced plans to sell 100% of its Italian subsidiary Vodafone Italia to the Swiss operator Swisscom, at a price of E8bn.


The groups this morning confirmed that they were in "exclusive negotiations", while specifying that there was no certainty at present as to the final outcome of the transaction.

Vodafone, which is seeking to refocus on its key markets, points out that it has held discussions with several players in the sector, but considers Swisscom's offer to be the most attractive from the point of view of its shareholders.

Swisscom's offer has the advantage of being in cash, analysts at Oddo BHF said.

However, the broker believes that Vodafone has turned down the best offer, since iliad's proposal included E6.6bn in cash, E2bn in shareholder loans and a E2bn stake in the merged entity.

We believe it is likely that Vodafone did not want to reach an agreement with the iliad group, which has been directly responsible for Vodafone's difficulties in Italy since it entered 2019 with aggressive offers, Oddo points out.

Swisscom plans to merge Vodafone Italia with its Fastweb subsidiary, which has been growing steadily for ten years and has established itself as a leading player in Europe's fourth-largest broadband market.

The news sent Vodafone shares up almost 3%, making it one of the biggest risers on the pan-European STOXX 600 index this morning.


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