Verizon isn’t buying Vodafone

Rumours surfaced yesterday, that Verizon, one of the US' biggest telecoms firms, was set to team up with AT&T (another giant) to buy out Vodafone, to the tune of £161 billion. This sent Vodafone's stock flying up, but it turns out that the rumours were false, as Verizon has now denied those claims.

“As Verizon has said many times, it would be a willing purchaser of the 45% stake that Vodafone holds in Verizon Wireless,” said a spokesperson in a statement. “It does not, however, currently have any intention to merge with or make an offer for Vodafone, whether alone or in conjunction with others.”

According to the Guardian, if this deal had gone through, it would have been the biggest corporate takeover in history, easily beating out the current first place holder, AOL's buyout of Time Warner just over a decade ago.

“We think that the wording of Verizon's press release also makes it clear that Verizon have made their interest in the Verizon Wireless stake to Vodafone and been rebuffed,” said Robin Bienenstock, an analyst at Bernstein Research. “In other words, we view Vodafone as a (very) reluctant seller.”

Of course while this potential merger would have been huge, we've seen some pretty big developments in that field over the last couple of years, with T-Mobile and Orange combining to becoming Everything Everywhere. While the name might be horrible, the spectrum coverage commanded by the joint companies was large enough to give it a headstart in the 4G race.

KitGuru Says: Now that we know it's not going to happen, are any of you disappointed? Was there anyone that was looking forward to new Verizon overlords taking over? 

Image Source: Robert Scoble

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