Vodafone announces the listing of its tower company. Vantage Towers will land on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in early 2021.
According to the group's chief executive, Nick Read, the new company of the towers "marks significant progress on the strategy I established when I became CEO of Vodafone, in particular with regards to the key pillar of improving the use of resources".
“We created the leading tower infrastructure company in Europe, which will play a central role in building a digital, inclusive and sustainable society”, explains the manager again, also underlining that “Vantage Towers will also unlock additional shareholder value, in particular through the IPO, which we aim for in early 2021,” he said.
After the flotation, Vodafone will still retain a majority stake in Vantage Towers. We recall that the group announced last year the creation of a European tower company with a value of up to 18 billion euros. The spin-out, which has more than 68.000 mobile towers in nine European markets, went live in May.
In parallel Vodafone has also published its first quarter accounts, closed with revenues of 10,506 billion euros, a decrease of 1,4% compared to the same period of the previous fiscal year. In the same quarter, organic services revenue decreased 1,3%, following a 1,6% increase in the prior quarter. The company attributed the decline in revenue to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in lower roaming and visitor revenue, project delays and less auto activity in its business segment, and lower revenue in some smaller markets. Vodafone said its forecast for fiscal 2021 remains unchanged.
For Italy, the quarter ended with revenues from services down by 6,5% to 1,120 billion euros, a result weighed on by the reduction in roaming traffic and foreign visitor flows in Italy caused by the impact of the pandemic. On the other hand, revenues from fixed network services rose by 4,1% to 305 million euros. Customers also rose, reaching 3 million units, of which 2,9 million in broadband (+4,9%).
It grows too I have., the second Vodafone brand, which has exceeded 2 million customers. And the good news doesn't end there, given that the British group has won the tender for Poste Mobile, which has so far been held by Wind Tre. For the company led in Italy by Aldo Bisio it is an important blow, given that Poste has over 4,2 million mobile customers and is the fifth operator, just behind Iliad. Vodafone is currently the third with 19,2 million, behind Tim and Wind Tre with 21 and 23 million: this operation will allow the double overtaking.
