Vodafone takes a plunge after dividend rumours

VODAFONE

FTSE speculation The business, 100 group over has which become its to dividend. fall is the the prey latest second-largest to world, has refused mobile to provider comment in the on reports to pay it for may investment slash its dividend in new super-fast 5G mobile networks.

Countries’ governments sell the rights to transmit signals over specific bandwidths, and so far these auctions for 5G have been more expensive than anticipated.

Vodafone won a large chunk of the 5G airwaves in the UK, paying £378.2m for the rights to a particular range.

But it paid £2.1bn in Italy, and in Germany bidding has reached around £5bn.

In November Vodafone signalled that it would maintain its dividend, which is one of the most generous in Britain’s blue- chip index and cost the company around £2.8bn last year.

But it has increasingly come under pressure to pay down its £28bn debt pile, and price wars between mobile providers in Europe have heaped on the pressure. After the stock market closed for the day, Vodafone announced it had sold its New Zealand business for £1.8bn to infrastructure firm Infratil and Brookfield Asset Management.

Vodafone chief executive Nick Read said the deal would help it reduce debt, and that the New Zealand branch would maintain a relationship with the wider Vodafone group.

But shares slid by 5.2pc, or 7.2p, to 131.78p as results from Vodacom, the South African mobile provider which is majority-owned by Vodafone, did little to boost investors’ confidence.

South African companies are encouraged to meet quotas on black ownership and employment, in an effort to reverse the exclusion caused by apartheid. But Vodacom said that costs relating to a black economic empowerment ownership deal in September, which saw it issue additional shares on the Johannesburg stock exchange, pushed down earnings.

Investors in Stobart Group, the owner of Southend Airport and part of the consortium which recently bought struggling airline Flybe, were also alarmed as it revealed it would delay the publication of its full-year results by two weeks.

Stobart sold its air division to Connect Airways, the new company it formed along with Virgin Airways and Cyrus Capital to buy Flybe. It said it would restate last year’s accounts to reflect this disposal, but it is understood that matters have been delayed because Stobart did not see several documents relating to the Flybe deal until weeks after it was announced in February.

Although the firm said it was confident of delivering full-year revenue and profit in line with expectations, shareholders were clearly concerned that the results delay was a bad omen. Shares fell by 10.6pc, or 15p, to 126p.

Fund manager Neil Woodford has continued to show support for greetings card company Card Factory. The firm revealed today that Woodford, across several of his funds, owns more than 10pc of the FTSE 250 business.

He began buying up Card Factory shares in April 2017, and crossed the 5pc threshold in October that year. His backing did little to help the firm’s shares yesterday, however, which were down 1.8pc, or 3.4p, at 185p.

Broadcaster ITV was sinking as The Jeremy Kyle Show was suspended following the death of a guest a week after they appeared on the programme that features lie- detector tests, DNA results and fiery arguments.

Shares tumbled by 6.3pc, or 7.55p, to 111.8p.

ITV dragged on the FTSE 100, pulling it down by 0.6pc, or 39.61 points, to 7163.68 points.