English
"Vodafone Group" Plc, the world"s largest mobile telephony operator in terms of sales volume, sold its 3.2% stake it held in "China Mobile" Ltd., the largest telecom company in China for 6.6 billion dollars. The buyer of the 624.87 million shares was not identified.
This transaction is the largest that the company did after the CEO position was taken over by Vittorio Colao, in 2008.
The British group said that 70% of the income from this deal will go to shareholders, in the form of stock buyback, and the remainder of the amount will be used to pay off some of the group"s debt, which amounted to 32.7 billion pounds at the end of July.
Colao said that the British company will be reviewing all of its minority stakes.
"Vodafone" acquired a 2.18% stake in the shares of "China Mobile" in 2000, a quota which it then increased to 3.2% in 2002. "China Mobile", in which the Chinese state holds 74%, is the largest telephony operator in the world, in terms of its number of users.
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