Vodafone to cash-in on £18bn of masts

VODaFOne shares soared 10pc after it revealed plans to spin off its £18bn mobile towers arm.

The telecoms giant said the business would be legally separated and given its own management team, with a view to a possible sale or stock market float within 18 months.

analysts put its value at between £13.5bn and £18bn.

The sale or float of the towers arm paves the way for Vodafone to cut its debt mountain and hand a major windfall to shareholders, who were left dismayed when it slashed its dividend earlier this year.

nick Read, who announced a review shortly after becoming boss in October, said yesterday: ‘Building on our position as europe’s largest converged operator, we are now creating europe’s largest tower company.

‘Given the scale and quality of our infrastructure, we believe there is a substantial opportunity to unlock value for shareholders.’

With 61,700 towers, mostly in the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy, the proposed ‘TowerCo’ will be europe’s biggest masts owner with revenues of £ 1.5bn. It stands to rake in profits of about £809m per year and will be operational by may.