E& gets pushy with Vodafone

E& has reportedly further increased its stake in Vodafone and is now looking to make changes at the telco group’s board.

The United Arab Emirates-based operator has raised its holding in the UK-based telecoms group to 14.6%, Bloomberg reports, citing a regulatory filing.

That’s just a small hike on the firm’s previous 14% stake, a position it built up in increments since its first share acquisition back in May last year. But at around US$450 million per percentage point, it’s not a small sum to commit. We don’t have a value for any new transaction, incidentally; that figure is based on e&’s initial Vodafone foray eleven months ago. Vodafone’s share price has continued to slide in the interim, so the numbers could well look different now. Nonetheless, e& is clearly not afraid of throwing more cash at Vodafone, presumably attracted by that subdued stock price.

But more than that, this latest deal shows that e& is keen to exert some sort of influence over Vodafone.

According to the newswire, e& opened discussions with Vodafone earlier this month about its non-executive directors; essentially, it’s pushing for change at board level, presumably with a view to gaining influence in its own right. There has been no formal comment on that assumption from either side though. It points out that two of Vodafone’s non-executive directors, Clara Furse and Crispin Davis, could well step down this year having each served a nine-year term, the maximum recommended under the UK’s corporate governance code. Perhaps e& is seeing a handy opening.

It might well not be the only one. E& is one of a few big names to have bought into Vodafone of late, Liberty Global and Xavier Niel’s Atlas Investissement being the most noteworthy of the others. It would not be a surprise to see either of those shareholders seek to exert more control over the troubled, leaderless telco in the not-too-distant future.

E& recently dismissed the idea of making a takeover bid for Vodafone, but its latest move suggests it is not simply buying up cheap shares to make a quick buck either.

“The pursuit of board representation by Vodafone’s largest shareholder e&, while expected given its growing 14.6% stake, is a positive move in light of e&’s plan to be a long-term investor in the carrier, making further stakebuilding likely,” the newswire quoted Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Erhan Gurses as saying. “The Emirati company’s push is a change from its original position, suggesting it may become a pro-active force to ensure execution aligns with its long-term strategy.”

So it seems we can expect e& to throw more cash at Vodafone and work harder to make its voice heard.

Given that the telco has been without a permanent chief executive since Nick Read stepped down late last year, and that as a result its M&A opportunities in the UK and possibly elsewhere appear to be on ice, it’s probably just as well that someone is taking an interest.

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