Vodafone sells remaining £269 million stake in Indian telecoms group
London-listed mobile giant has been gradually cutting its shares in Indus Towers in recent months.
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Your support makes all the difference.Vodafone has sold its shares in Indus Towers, the Indian telecoms group, for £269 million.
The London-listed firm said it had sold its 79.2 million shares in the company on Friday, with about £85 million-worth going towards repaying debts relating to its Indian assets.
The rest, Vodafone said, has been used to up its stake in Vodafone Idea, another Indian telecoms firm, from 22.6% to 24.4%.
Mumbai-headquartered Vodafone Idea is India’s third largest mobile telecoms network, and came from a 2018 tie-up of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular.
Vodafone has been gradually cutting its stake in Indus Towers in recent months.
In June, it sold 484.7 million shares to pay off £1.5 billion-worth of debt against its Indian assets.
The latest sale equates to about 3% of Indus Towers’ overall stock.
It comes after Vodafone has been looking to free up cash and improve its financial performance by selling off parts of the business, including its Spanish arm, having previously struck deals to sell its Hungarian and Ghanaian divisions.
Earlier in January, it completed the eight billion euro (£6.6 billion) sale of its Italian business to Switzerland’s Swisscom.
The mobile phone giant said it planned to use the cash to pay down its debt pile and complete a two billion euro (£1.7 billion) share buyback to boost returns for investors.