Verizon, Telefonica reportedly eye joint Vodafone bid – MarketWatch:
A consortium of telecoms giants and private-equity firms are said to be mulling a bid for Vodafone Group, according to a press report published Monday.
Well, oh well, I remember having had a bet on Vodafone back in 2000. Friends told me that there is no way that a hostile take-over like the one from Vodafone for Mannesmann would ever work. I even remember one of the friends saying: “Man, this is not the 80ies, you know, hostile take-overs don’t work anymore!”
I believed in Vodafone at that time and … won! Of course this news would have been so absurd at that time, but then again – Vodafone did so many mistakes after starting that great strategy, it really deserves to lose its independence and become a department in Telefonica!
The most ironic thing in this story is that at that time (2000), Telefonica was struggling with its acquisition of Lycos (remember TerraLycos someone?) and is now (well, “now” being 2 years ago) back on the big, international buying-frenzy market.
Go Telefonica, go!
Links:
- Tagesschau (German): According to “tagesschau.d”, the price is set at around £ 96m. After the take-over, the partners (Verizon, Telefonica, and Blackstone) plan to split Vodafone among themselves – this actually sounds a bit like vultures circling above Vodafone…