{"id":650114,"date":"2013-04-02T10:33:52","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T14:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=626426"},"modified":"2013-04-02T10:33:52","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T14:33:52","slug":"the-mother-of-all-ma-rumors-att-verizon-to-jointly-buy-vodafone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/650114","title":{"rendered":"The mother of all M&A rumors: AT&T, Verizon to jointly buy Vodafone"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rumors surrounding everyone\u2019s favorite mismatched telecom partners Verizon and Vodafone are escalating. No longer is Vodafone considering selling its 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless<\/a> to Verizon. No longer is Verizon considering buying Vodafone. Instead, according to The Financial Times\u2019<\/i> Alphaville blog<\/a>, Verizon is teaming up with\u00a0arch-rival\u00a0AT&T for a possible bid on Vodafone.<\/p>\n

FT puts the price at U.S. $245 billion, which is larger than the gross national product of all but 39 countries<\/a>. According to Wireless Intelligence\u2019s most recent global rankings<\/a>, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone and AT&T are the second, third and fourth largest carriers, in that order, by revenue. In terms of total subscribers<\/a>, the multinational Vodafone is the world\u2019s second largest carrier, while Verizon and AT&T rank 16th<\/sup> and 18th<\/sup> respectively.<\/p>\n

In short this would be one hell of an deal, and by FT reckoning it would be the largest M&A transaction in history. That should be one reason to be skeptical that it\u2019s true. There would be some big regulatory hurdles to such a deal, though they could probably be overcome since AT&T and Verizon wouldn’t themselves be merging. The biggest reason for skepticism, though, is we\u2019ve been hearing talk of Verizon-Vodafone deals practically since the two companies combined their U.S. mobile operations in 2000. So far they\u2019ve all come to naught.<\/p>\n

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