Verizon has reached an agreement with Vodafone to purchase its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless for roughly $130 billion, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The outlet says that the deal isn’t final yet, but it could be announced as soon as Monday.
The acquisition would be the second-largest ever of its kind, coming in about $40 billion behind another Vodafone deal—a $172 billion buyout of Mannesmann AG in 1999—and would cement Verizon’s control of the biggest wireless carrier in the US by subscriber base…
The Journal’s Spencer E. Ante and Costas Paris report:
“Verizon will pay roughly $130 billion for Vodafone’s 45% stake in Verizon Wireless, one of the people said. The terms still needed to be approved by the companies’ boards, but if all goes well a deal could be announced as soon as Monday afternoon, the people said.
Vodafone’s board was meeting Sunday to discuss the deal, and Verizon’s board was to meet after hearing the result, people familiar with the matter said.”
The pair go on to say that while a number of details surrounding the secretive agreement are still unknown, sources have told them that under the terms, Verizon would pay for Vodafone’s 45% stake in Verizon Wireless with roughly equal portions of both cash and stock.
Founded on April 4, 2000 as a joint venture from Verizon and Vodafone, Verizon Wireless has just over 110 million subscribers, making it the largest carrier in the US and 16th in the world. Last quarter, the company announced that it garnered a cool $29.8 billion in revenue.
The backbone of its success thus far has been its wireless network. Verizon was the first carrier in the US to rollout LTE on a large scale, and it has been at the forefront of the 4G tech ever since. It currently has the largest and most reliable LTE network in the country.