Chatting up Vodafone

BRITISH telecoms group

Vodafone has been approached by potential buyers for the operator’s business in Spain, market sources revealed.

While not officially seeking a sale, Vodafone would allegedly consider an offer if the price were right, added the same sources who were recently quoted in the Spanish media.

The company’s Spanish operation is estimated to be worth around €3.6 billion but although discussions are said to be ongoing it is not a foregone conclusion that these will result in a sale and Vodafone has declined to comment on the rumours.

Between 2018 and 2022, Vodafone saw its Spanish earnings dwindle by 16 per cent to approximately €4.2 billion and the company’s share of the Spanish market has undeniably gradually shrunk as it has had to face competition from Telefonica, Frances Orange and MasMovil.

Vodafone’s former CEO Nick Read, whose departure was announced last December, earlier failed to pull off the mergers and acquisitions that might have produced more competitive players.

Instead the company was completely outma ­

MOSCOW has approved the sale of Inditex’s business operation in Russia to the Daher group, which owns the Dubai Mall shopping centre. The Spanish fashion chain originally announced that the sale would affect 514 shops in Russia which had provided work for more than 9,000 employees. Nevertheless, Inditex explained when presenting its 2022 results noeuvred when the proposed Orange ­ MasMovil merger was announced in July 2022.

In the meantime, Read’s successor, Margherita Della Valle has downgraded Spain ­ previously one of Vodafone’s principal markets ­ to a smaller group of lesser operations like Ireland or Greece.