Vodafone Group Plc is exploring options for its African business as investors ramp up pressure on the UK telecom company to boost performance, people familiar with the matter said.<\/p>\n
The London-listed firm is working with advisers to study ways to extract more value from its 65% holding in Vodacom Group Ltd., the people said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private.<\/p>\n
The early-stage considerations range from merging the business with other operators or divesting some assets in certain markets, to selling a stake in the company, the people said.<\/p>\n
Vodacom has a market value of about $14.4 billion on the Johannesburg bourse after declining about 17% in the last 12 months.<\/p>\n
Vodafone is down almost 30% in that time period, valuing it at \u00a326.8 billion ($32.2 billion).<\/p>\n
While Vodafone has always seen the African unit as a core part of the group, the exercise shows that it\u2019s willing to study a wide range of alternatives as it casts around for a way to stem a decline in its shares.<\/p>\n
Billionaire John Malone\u2019s Liberty Global Plc disclosed a\u00a04.9% stake<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in Vodafone on Monday, joining other strategic investors French billionaire Xavier Niel and state-backed Emirates Telecommunications Group Co., formerly known as Etisalat and now called e&.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no certainty the deliberations will lead to any transaction.<\/p>\n A representative for the UK carrier said that Vodacom \u201cis a strong business that is an important part of Vodafone\u201d and there are no ongoing discussions about a potential sale.<\/p>\n A representative for Vodacom declined to comment.<\/p>\n Etisalat, which is Vodafone\u2019s largest shareholder, has been\u00a0exploring<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0a potential investment in Vodacom, Bloomberg News reported in December.<\/p>\n It has been studying the possibility of buying Vodafone\u2019s stake in Vodacom or merging its own African operations with Vodacom, people with knowledge of the matter said at the time.<\/p>\n Vodafone\u2019s holding in the African business may also attract interest from other bidders, according to the people.<\/p>\n Vodafone has been selling assets and replaced its chief executive Nick Read late last year as it has come under attack from activist investors due to its poor performance.<\/p>\n Last year, it sold a stake in Frankfurt-listed Vantage Towers AG unit to a private equity consortium in a\u00a0deal<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0valuing the business at \u20ac16.2 billion ($17.3 billion).<\/p>\n The British company has been consolidating its interests on the continent under Vodacom, which provides services in countries including South Africa, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n Vodafone\u2019s stake in Vodacom increased to 65% after it completed the sale of its Egyptian business to the South African unit, according to a regulatory filing Monday.<\/p>\n The early-stage considerations range from merging the business with other operators or divesting some assets in certain markets, to selling a stake in the company, the people said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":468823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41906],"tags":[62492,5582,22215,83099,41,1789],"class_list":["post-480459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-telecoms","tag-african-telecoms","tag-etisalat","tag-liberty-global","tag-vantage-towers","tag-vodacom","tag-vodafone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480459"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":480461,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480459\/revisions\/480461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Now read: Telkom plans raising R1 billion amid dwindling profits<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"