The long-rumored merger between Vodafone and Three in the UK is finally on. The two have agreed to invest £11 billion in the country's 5G infrastructure over the next 10 years as part of the deal, and claim that combining operations will deliver greater competition in the market., but now Vodafone Group and Three owner CK Hutchison Group have announced a binding agreement to combine their UK operations, with Voda owning 51 percent of the resulting company and Hutchison 49 percent.
Voda and Three have given an undertaking that the combined business will invest £11 billion over 10 years to create"one of Europe's most advanced standalone 5G networks," and claimed the merger will deliver up to £5 billion per year in economic benefit by 2030. CK Hutchison Group co-managing director Canning Fok said the announcement is a milestone, and conceded that"Three UK and Vodafone UK currently lack the necessary scale on their own to earn their cost of capital." However, post-merger"we will have the scale needed to deliver a best-in-class 5G network for the UK," he added.
"As separate entities, it would have been near impossible for either to grow enough organically to come close to challenging BT or Virgin Media O2 for size. Inevitably however, there will be widespread fears over job cuts," he added.
Business Business Latest News, Business Business Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: SkyNews - 🏆 35. / 67 Read more »
Vodafone and CK Hutchison agree UK mobile merger\n\t\t\tExclusive scoops\n\t\t\tSmart data to help spot risk and opportunity\n\t\t\tAnalysis of broader trends in M&A\n\t\t\tLex, our agenda-setting business commentary (Premium only)\n\t\t\tDue Diligence, an exclusive M&A newsletter (Premium only)\n\t\t
Source: FT - 🏆 113. / 51 Read more »