Vodafone juggles sales, acquisitions
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DEALS |
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WHO |
WITH |
WHAT |
SCOOP |
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Telefonica |
O2 |
Telefonica to acquire O2 for $31.6B |
Telefonica plans to retain O2's board and branding. O2 will contribute 24.6M customers and 15,000 employees to Telefonica's 145M customers and 173,000 employees. |
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Vodafone |
Vodacom |
Vodafone to increase stake in Vodacom |
Vodafone has offered $2.4B to increase its stake in South African Vodacom from 35% to 50%. The deal would put Vodafone and Telkom South Africa in joint control of Vodacom. |
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Telenor |
Vodafone Sweden |
Telenor to acquire Vodafone Sweden for $1.8B |
Vodafone recently acquired 10% of Bharti Tele-Ventures for $1.5B and is now selling its Swedish division. Pending EU approval, the companies expect the deal to close by the end of the year. |
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XO Communications |
Elk Associates |
Elk to purchase XO's wireline company for $700M |
XO is selling its wireline company to Elk in order to launch a fixed broadband wireless service tailored to businesses and service providers. XO will retain its spectrum assets and the brand name XO Communications will stick with the wireline company. |
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Apax Partners, Texas Pacific Group |
Q-Telecom |
Team up to acquire Q-Telecom for $424.8M |
The companies will pay $394.5M in cash and assume $30.4M in debt for Greek wireless operator Q-Telecom. |
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Sprint Nextel |
Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Advance/Newhouse |
Add wireless services to their cable offerings |
The cable operators will put up a combined $100 million and Sprint will match the figure for the $200M joint venture that is set to launch early next year. The venture will be mutually exclusive for three years and have a 20-year term. |
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DoCoMo |
Tower Records Japan |
DoCoMo to purchase 42% stake in Tower Records Japan |
DoCoMo is offering $108.2M for the stake to outfit Japan's Tower Record stores with handset readers and offer in-store promotions for customers who use their wallet phones to make purchases. |
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AirWave Wireless, Juniper Networks |
Wendy's |
Provide security solution to Wendy's WiFi networks |
Wendy's signed up to secure WiFi networks in 6,600 of its US restaurants. The solution will keep their network free of viruses and malware, leading to quicker and more accurate ordering. |
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BSkyB |
Vodafone |
Launch Sky Mobile TV |
The companies teamed up to launch a mobile 19-channel TV service that includes 24-hour news, sports, entertainment and documentaries from Sky News, Sky One, Sky Sports, Discovery and Living TV. |
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EMI |
Nokia |
Bluetooth music downloads |
The two teamed up for the trial launch of bFree, an in-store music download service that uses Bluetooth technology to listen to music tracks. |
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Nintendo |
BT Openzone, The Cloud |
Launch Nintendo hotspots in the UK |
Nintendo plans to expand its free WiFi hotspots for Nintendo DS users by allowing users to access more than 7,500 free hotspots in the UK starting November 25. |
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RIM |
Intel |
Launch a BlackBerry for Cingular's EDGE |
RIM and Intel plan to launch a BlackBerry handheld that runs over Cingular's high-speed EDGE data network in the US. The BlackBerry 8700c is built on Intel's XScale architecture with a PXA901 cellular processor. |
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Yahoo, SBC |
Nokia |
Launch a handset |
Yahoo and SBC will launch a handset that links with users' Yahoo accounts, address books and preferences. Nokia will develop the handset that will also include an MP3 player, a 1.3-megapixel camera and a removable memory card. |