A released statement by Vodafone Group said that there is "no certainty that an agreement will be reached." The wireless carrier company and Verizon Communications had been working out terms of their negotiations in light of the USD130 billion buyback of the latter's 45% Verizon Wireless stake from Vodafone. The deal would also have Verizon resell its 23% stake in Vodafone Italia back to Vodafone. The Vodafone Italia exit was said to be valued at EUR4 billion or USD5.3 billion, according from two of the same sources.
Should the deal push through, it would signal the end of Verizon Communications and Vodafone's partnership. According to a Reuters report, the partnership was prohibiting Verizon from full ownership of Vodafone while paying the latter dividends amounting to billions.
Analyst Leopold Salcher of Raiffeisen Capital Manangement said, "This deal is extremely important for Vodafone for their convergence strategy toward more cable assets because pure mobile operators will certainly experience capacity bottlenecks in the future."
Verizon spokesman Bob Varettoni declined to provide a comment about the deal. Verizon experienced a 0.8% drop in share price to USD46.56 in the New York bourse yesterday. Vodafone benefited from the exit news, trading at a 9.4% high in the London bourse.
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