Vodafone completes £6.6bn deal to offload Italian arm Vodafone has completed the eight billion euro (£6.6 billion) sale of its Italian business to Switzerland’s Swisscom as a flurry of deals are sewn up for the start of the new year.
The mobile phone giant – which last month saw its £15 billion tie-up with Three UK cleared by Britain’s competition regulator – plans to use the cash to pay down its debt pile and complete a further two billion euro (£1.7 billion) share buyback to boost returns for investors once its current programme has ended.
As part of the deal, the firms have agreed that Vodafone will continue to provide certain services to Vodafone Italy for up to five years, which will see the FTSE 100 listed group receive an annual charge of around 350 million euro (£290 million).
Vodafone agreed the deal with Swisscom in March just two weeks after the pair confirmed talks, with Vodafone saying the move marked the final step of its strategy to sell off parts of its European portfolio.
The Italian division sale comes after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last month gave the green light to the mega-merger between Vodafone and Three UK, paving the way for the creation of Britain’s biggest mobile phone network.
