e& sells entire Vodafone stake for $5.95 billion

Abu Dhabi group expects a net cash return of $1.3 billion from the stake sale

Last updated:
Nivetha Dayanand, Assistant Business Editor
e& sells entire Vodafone stake for $5.95 billion
Reuters

Dubai: UAE telecoms group e& is selling its entire investment in Vodafone Group for $5.95 billion, bringing an end to one of its largest international shareholdings after a review of its global portfolio.

The Abu Dhabi-listed company said it had signed a binding agreement with Vega, an acquisition vehicle wholly owned by the Niel family group, to divest nearly 3.95 billion Vodafone shares.

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The holding represents about 16.21% of Vodafone’s issued share capital and 17.13% of its voting rights.

The deal values the shares at 112.5 pence each, comprising about 110.5 pence in cash from the buyer and Vodafone’s final financial year 2026 dividend of 2.02 pence per share.

The dividend is due to be paid on July 30.

Deal to generate Dh21.8 billion

The transaction is expected to generate cash proceeds of about Dh21.8 billion, equivalent to $5.95 billion, including the final dividend.

e& expects to record a net cash return of approximately Dh4.7 billion, or $1.3 billion, from the sale.

The shares will initially be transferred through off-market block trades to three financial institutions, which will hold them until Vega completes the required regulatory procedures.

Board representative steps down

e& has also terminated its relationship agreement with Vodafone, while its representative on the British telecoms company’s board has stepped down as a non-executive director.

The sale follows a comprehensive review of e&’s international investment portfolio and marks its full exit from Vodafone.

Nivetha Dayanand
Nivetha DayanandAssistant Business Editor
Nivetha Dayanand is Assistant Business Editor at Gulf News, covering aviation, financial markets and commodities. A business and financial journalist with a strong interest in multimedia storytelling, she regularly takes complex financial and economic subjects beyond the written word, producing explainer videos that make them easier for a wider audience to understand. Nivetha has interviewed senior policymakers, business leaders and global financial figures both on and off camera. Her past guests include UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, a member of the House of Saud and the founder and CEO of KBW Ventures, Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund and Indian ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and N. Chandrababu Naidu. She has also hosted and moderated panels, conferences and awards shows, bringing her newsroom experience to live conversations on business, finance and the economy. An Erasmus Mundus journalism alum, Nivetha is drawn to stories that affect people directly and to reporting that gives a platform to voices that might otherwise go unheard. She was among the first journalists to speak to Petrofac employees in the UAE about unpaid salaries, broke the news of the planned demolition of Dubai’s well-known “Toyota Building”, and helped set the record straight on widely circulated claims that a giant replica of the Moon was coming to Dubai. More recently, her exclusive interview with EDGE Group CEO Hamad Al Marar revealed how the UAE-based defence group deployed its systems along the country’s shore border and established a geofence around the UAE within 48 hours of the February 28 escalation. Prior to joining Gulf News, Nivetha worked at ITP Media, where she helped launch Finance Middle East, a new publication covering the region’s financial sector. Her role spanned reporting and editing, video production, interviews and events. Across print, digital, and video, she focuses on finding the people behind business stories and explaining why those stories matter to the audience reading or watching them.

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