UK-headquartered Vodafone Group, has agreed to sell its Hungarian unit in a deal valued at €1.8-billion including debt as part of its plan to simplify its sprawling business.
The company sold the assets to 4iG Public and Corvinus Zrt, a Hungarian state holding company, Vodafone said in a statement on Monday. The companies aim to close the acquisition by the end of the year, and VOIS, Vodafone’s IT and business support venture, isn’t included in the deal. The combination with 4iG will create the second largest mobile and fixed communications company in the country, the company said in the statement. It will go towards the government’s strategy of creating a “national champion in the ICT sector”, Vodafone CEO Nick Read said.
The government plans to label the assets as strategically important, economic development minister Marton Nagy said in a statement. That means the purchase won’t face regulatory scrutiny. Vodafone has about three million mobile customers and 738 000 fixed broadband customers in Hungary, according to filings.
After almost three decades of global expansion riding the global proliferation of wireless services, Vodafone has retrenched and focused on core markets in Europe and Africa. Telecoms shareholder returns have dwindled facing regulation, fierce competition, demands for relentless investment in networks and the loss of revenues from services like messaging. —