O2 UK no longer for sale - Telefonica

News General United Kingdom 30 JUN 2016
O2 UK no longer for sale - Telefonica

Telefonica has pulled out of plans to sell O2 UK, consolidating the unit back into its financial statements and no longer presenting it as discontinued operations, according to a filing submitted to Spanish markets regulator CNMV. The announcement comes after the European Commission blocked Telefonica’s GBP 10.3 billion sale of O2 to CK Hutchison due to competition concerns. However, Telefonica added that it “continues to explore different strategic alternatives for O2 UK, to be implemented when market conditions are right”.

The company was expecting to use proceeds from the sale to reduce some of its EUR 50.2 billion debt and was even considering a minority sale of O2 UK in an IPO as a backup plan. However, Bloomberg reported that market instability following the UK vote to leave the EU has ruled out that possibility in the short term, with Telefonica now risking a credit downgrade by Moody’s if it can’t get an alternate deleveraging plan in place by the end of the year.

Categories:

General

Companies:

European Commission,  O2 UK,  Telefonica

Countries:

Spain,  United Kingdom

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Production planning & operations, Financial figures, Regulations, Financial funding

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