Vodafone sells out of Qatar joint venture for £264m

Vodafone Group has sold its 51% stake in a Qatar joint venture to its project partner, the Qatar Foundation for the equivalent of £264m and an ongoing partner-market deal.

The foundation agreed to acquire Vodafone's stake for 1,350m Qatari riyal (€301m), with 1,250m riyal payable at completion and the rest 12 months after completion, which is expected in the next three months.

This represents a 3% discount to the volume weighted average price over the past 30 trading days and values Vodafone Qatar at an enterprise value of 6.5bn riyal.

As part of the deal, Vodafone and its Qatari namesake have entered into a five-year partner market agreement to use the Vodafone brand and benefit from the expertise and assets of the UK Plc.

Vivek Badrinath, chief executive of the FTSE 100 group's Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific region, said: "We have experienced great success over the years in building our joint business in Qatar and always enjoyed a strong working relationship with the Qatar Foundation.

"As the company embarks in a new phase of its journey, we now look forward to continuing our involvement with the business through a long-term, branded partnership agreement and are committed to its ongoing success."

It was quite a busy day for Vodafone on Monday, also announcing that it will become Samsung's exclusive strategic telecoms partner in selected European markets, to develop and launch a range of consumer ‘internet of things’ (IoT) smart home product and services.