I think it’s VZ.  The company says that even at a cost of $130 billion the buy-in of VOD’s 45% minority interest will add 10% to VZ’s earnings.  But VZ is also adding a significant amount of risk in leveraging itself financially.

a simplified history

In 1982 the federal government forced the breakup of the monopoly telephone service provider, ATT.  It separated the parts into a national long-distance provider, which retained the ATT name, and a bunch of regional local service providers, nicknamed the “Baby Bells.”  Each Baby Bell contained its area’s nascent mobile services.

Soon enough, the Baby Bells began to merge with one another, ultimately forming into a Western US group (which subsequently acquired “new” ATT and took on the ATT name) and an Eastern group, which subsequently renamed itself Verizon.  Proto-VZ wanted to keep its mobile assets.  Proto-ATT didn’t.  To keep the mobile assets out of the clutches of prot0-VZ, Airtouch, the proto-ATT mobile operation, sold itself to VOD in 2000.

VOD promptly struck a deal with VZ in which it merged Airtouch with the VZ mobile operations to form Verizon Wireless.  VZ had operating control and a 55% interest.  VOD had veto power over some decisions and held the other 45% of Verizon Wireless.

Got all that?

culture clash

VOD is a British company.  It apparently believed in the old-style colonial European way of doing business, according to which a firm with global pretensions could get more bang for a buck (or quid, in this case) of capital by taking large minority interests in important foreign  firms.  Through superior intellect/management technique, or force of will, or sheer European-ness, it would dominate the board of directors.  It would thereby get the benefits of 100% ownership without the capital outlay.   The resulting network of companies would move in lockstep with its European leader, buying the capital equipment suggested (getting discounts for all) and perhaps paying management fees to the European company for its advice.

VZ, an American firm, would have thought that no one in his right mind would accept a minority stake.  If would have figured that VOD would soon see the light and be persuaded to sell.

Or maybe that’s just how the two parties rationalized the unhappy partnership that they entered into.

what each party gets from the deal

Verizon

–when the deal closes early next year, VZ will have access to the cash flow from Verizon Wireless for the first time.  US tax law   requires that a parent have an 80% interest in a subsidiary before cash can flow tax-free from it to the parent

–VOD will no longer have an operational say in Verizon Wireless

–the very mature fixed-line telephone business will be a significantly smaller proportion of the whole

–the deal is accretive to earnings by 10%

Vodafone

–VOD extracts itself from its awkward minority position

–ir gets a big payday, even after distributing the bulk of the proceeds to shareholders, which it will presumably use for EU acquisitions

–VOD believes it can use a provision in UK tax law regarding transactions between conglomerates to pay only about $8 billion it taxes on this deal