British giant Vodafone has accumulated nearly $25 billion in about a year by selling stakes in various mobile ventures across the world -- an amount whose less than half it is spending for acquiring control of India's fourth largest mobile player.
While announcing its bid to acquire Hutch-Essar for $11.08 billion in cash, Vodafone also said in early hours on Wednesday that it would sell its 5.6 per cent stake in Bharti Airtel for $1.6 billion.
Prior to stake dilution in Airtel, Vodafone has sold stakes in mobile ventures in three countries since March 2006.
Before that, the company had been on an acquisition overdrive across the world with deals worth over $12 billion executed in 2005, while it had spend over $32 billion for various acquisitions between 1999-2004.
However, after facing flak from the investment banking circles for overpaying in various acquisition deals, the company adopted an altogether different strategy towards the beginning of last year when it started cashing out on not-so strategic ventures, a senior investment banker said.
The company's last major acquisition, prior to Hutch-Essar, was purchase of Turkey's Telsim for $4.55 billion in December 2005, which has turned out to be a value-accretive proposition, the banker added.
In March 2006, Vodafone started its new strategy of exiting from not-so-profitable ventures with sale of its Japanese business, Vodafone KK, to Softbank for about $17.3 billion.
In August 2006, the company sold off its 25 per cent in Belgian mobile operator Proximus to partner Belgacom for $2.56 billion followed by another sale of 25 per cent in Swisscom Mobile for $3.50 billion.
