Business
Sale of Vodafone Italy and capital return
Sale of Vodafone Italy and capital return.
About this update from Vodafone Group Public Limited Company
[{"type":"text","content":"\n\n \n \nVodafone Group Plc ⫶ News release\n15 March 2024\nTHIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION\n \n \n\n\n\n\nReshaped European footprint, €8bn sale of Vodafone Italy & €4bn capital return\nVodafone Group Plc (\"Vodafone\") announces today the final step of the portfolio right-sizing announced in May 2023, with a binding agreement to sell 100% of its Italian operations (\"Vodafone Italy\") to Swisscom AG (\"Swisscom\") (the \"Transaction\").1\n· Reshaped European footprint focused on growing markets, with strong positions and local scale\n· Value-creating sale of Vodafone Italy to Swisscom for €8 billion upfront cash proceeds\n· Attractive valuation, representing c.26x consensus OpFCF2 and 7.6x consensus Adjusted EBITDAaL2 for FY24\n· New capital allocation framework, including dividend to be rebased to 4.5c per share from FY25 onwards, €4 billion capital return via share buybacks and new leverage range of 2.25x - 2.75x\n\"Today, I am announcing the third and final step in the reshaping of our European operations. Going forward, our businesses will be operating in growing telco markets - where we hold strong positions - enabling us to deliver predictable, stronger growth in Europe. This will be coupled with our acceleration in B2B, as we continue to take share in an expanding digital services market.\nThe sale of Vodafone Italy to Swisscom creates significant value for Vodafone and ensures the business maintains its leading position in Italy, which has been built through the dedicated commitment of our colleagues to serving our customers over many years.\nOur transactions in Italy and Spain will deliver €12 billion of upfront cash proceeds and we intend to return €4 billion to shareholders via buybacks, as part of our broader capital allocation review.\"\nMargherita Della Valle Group Chief Executive\n \n\n\n\n\nReshaped European footprint\nWith the sale of Vodafone Italy and Vodafone Spain, together with the merger of Vodafone UK and Three UK, Vodafone will now focus its operations in Europe on growing markets, where we hold strong positions with good local scale. All telecom markets within the new geographic footprint have been growing over the last 3 years and we will now accelerate our performance where we can create value. In the near...