Vodafone to buy out Hutchison Essar?
According to the BBC, Vodafone has confirmed that it is considering a bid for a majority stake in Hutchison Whampoa’s Indian mobile phone business. Vodafone is expected to offer as much as $13.5bn (£6.9bn) for Hutchison Essar. This overture is consistent with Vodafone’s strategy of expanding in fast-moving markets to offset slow European growth. Whether it will be successful or not remains to be seen.
The BBC release went on to say that Vodafone already owns 10% of Bharti Airtel, the market leader in India, but is keen to build a more substantial presence in the world’s fastest growing telecoms market. Hutchison revealed that several other companies have expressed similar interest.
Foreign firms are limited to owning 74% of Indian mobile phone providers.
3 Days Left for Post-Christmas Rally
‘Tis the season for customary, post-Christmas, stock market gains and today’s figures show a market up-tick on news of increased consumer spending and consumer confidence.
Spending in November increased by 0.5% from 0.3% in the month previous. Analysts see a possibility of interest rate cuts by policy makers in the new year. This is all around, good news to an economy where two thirds of GDP is dependent on consumer spending.
Factory orders for big-ticket items such as appliances rose 1.9% in November after an 8.2% tumble in October.