Vodafone makes bid for Dutch subsidary

Mobile phone giant Vodafone said today it had made an €11 per share bid for all the outstanding shares in Vodafone Libertel, its majority-owned Dutch subsidiary.

The offer is worth around €750m and would value Libertel at €3.4bn.

Vodafone’s current shareholding in Libertel is 242.4 million shares which represents 77.6% of the total issued share capital of Libertel.

Vodafone intends to make market purchases of the remaining 22% of shares when they become available at up to a maximum price of €11.

In a statement to the London Stock Exchange, Vodafone said the offer price represented a premium of 35.6% above the average Libertel share price over the 12 months before discussions regarding a possible public offer were announced.

It aims to complete the offer by the end of March and has warned it could withdraw the deal if Libertel’s supervisory board did not recommend the offer.

Europe’s largest mobile phone operator is looking to snap up outstanding shares in three of its European subsidiaries in a €2bn plan.

Besides Libertel, Vodafone is looking at Europolitan Vodafone of Sweden, which is 74.7% owned by Vodafone and Vodafone Telecel Communicacoes Pessoais of Portugal, 61.4% owned by Vodafone.