Proactive Investors - Vodafone Group PLC (LON:VOD) has drummed up €1.3 billion from further selling down its stake in Frankfurt-listed mobile towers venture Vantage Towers, which it said it will use to trim its massive debt pile.
The telecoms group said it sold another 10% stake in Oak Holdings, the partnership that co-controls Vantage, which means Oak now has a 50-50 joint ownership structure with the consortium of infrastructure investors owning the other half, as set out when the Vantage was spun out.
Following this share sale, which was carried out at a price of €32 apiece, the same price as the initial transaction last November, Oak Holdings now owns 89.3% of Vantage Towers, giving Vodafone an effective ownership of 44.7%.
All in all, it has made €6.6 billion from selling down its ownership of the towers business, with this latest transaction expected to reduce the ratio of net debt to underlying profits by 0.1 times,