Vodafone officially walks away from New Zealand

Vodafone has completed the sale of its Kiwi business to a consortium of investors for €2.1 billion.

Although Vodafone is technically leaving the country, the brand will remain. The consortium, featuring Infratil Limited and Brookfield Asset Management, have signed an agreement to continue using the brand, while also accessing favourable roaming rates in countries where Vodafone is maintaining its presence.

“This transaction is a continuation of our strategy to optimise our portfolio and reduce our debt,” said Group CEO Nick Read.

“I am pleased we will continue our 21-year relationship with the business and talented team in New Zealand through a Partner Market agreement, delivering Vodafone’s technology and services to benefit the country as it transitions to a digital society.”

The sale of the Kiwi business was announced back in May as Vodafone searched for ‘financial headroom’. It appears this business unit was deemed surplus to requirements at a business which has been facing financial pressures in recent months.

Although Vodafone has remained profitable in a difficult time for telcos on the whole and maintained semi-favourable positions across the world, there are more difficult times on the horizon due to some lavish spending.

Not only does Vodafone have to source cash to fuel 5G deployments in various different markets, there are a couple of spectrum auctions to keep an eye on and marketing euros which need to be spent combatting resourceful rivals in some countries. The recent acquisition of Liberty Global’s European assets will also place stress on the spreadsheets.

It is been a couple of busy weeks for the Vodafone PR team, as aside from this transaction there have been network sharing announcements in Italy and the UK, as well as the prospect of a tower infrastructure business being spun off. The team is certainly working hard to generate extra cash in any way it possibly can.