Vodafone and CK Hutchison are reportedly in the final stage of agreeing on a merger. As per updates, both companies may announce their UK merger very soon.
According to a Reuters report, Vodafone and Hutchison may announce a merger of their British operations as soon as Friday or early next week. With this, Vodafone will reportedly own 51 per cent and Hutchison 49 per cent of the combined group.
The report adds that the merged entity would be worth around 15 billion pounds inclusive of debt. The respective stakes by both groups would reportedly be gained by adjusting ownership of debt and not exchanging cash.
Apart from this, the publication mentioned that Vodafone’s new CEO Margherita Della Valle is under pressure to agree deals in bigger and major markets. The idea behind them is to improve the entity’s pan-European and African performance.
Since the deal between Vodafone and Hutchison is huge and one of the biggest in the area, it is also expected to face a lot of scrutiny from regulators. This is mainly because previously, several regulators have opposed deals that tend to reduce the number of networks in major markets from four to three, Reuters explains.
