Verizon Communications Wants To Buy Out Vodafone's Verizon Wireless Stake

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Dianne See Morrison

mocoNews.net
Friday, June 27, 2008; 1:00 PM

Verizon Communications ( NYSE: VZ) wants to take full control of Verizon Wireless and buy out the 45 percent stake Vodafone ( NYSE: VOD) owns in the network operator. Verizon chief executive Ivan Seidenberg told the Financial Times in an interview, "Would I like to have 100 percent of the earnings given we're doing 100 percent of the work? Yeah, I would."

Seidenberg played down the notion that Vodafone was going to sell its stake anytime soon, but that with CEO Arun Sarin on his way out and Vittorio Colao on his way in, the Italian might "want to do something different." Though, according to analysts, in the last two years, the value of Vodafone's holdings in the US's second largest wireless operator has increased by $10 billion to $60 billion.

Seidenberg also told the FT that Sarin wanted Verizon Wireless to buy Alltel ( NYSE: AT) last year, but Verizon Communications decided against it after fearing it would get into a bidding war with Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sach's private equity unit, who eventually bought the smaller operator. A few weeks ago, Verizon Wireless agreed to buy Alltel for $28.1 billion.